Christopher leads McKinsey's work on organisation in the energy sector across the globe. He has a broad perspective on organisational challenges in the industry, having helped more than 25 energy companies, including international and national oil companies, utilities, and service providers. Beyond energy, Christopher also leads our work on enterprise-wide agile transformations across industries.
The current focus of Christopher's work is how energy companies can design and implement more agile organisations: reduce complexity in their organisational structures; redesign standards and processes so that they are efficient and fit for purpose; and ensure that their people have the capabilities and mind-sets to drive performance. Based on this, Christopher advises clients on operating model design, process simplification, and successful implementation of programmes to transform performance and health.
Christopher's recent work includes the following:
- advising an unconventional player how to transform ways of working across their organisation to fully implement an agile operating model
- supporting a national oil company in transforming its organisation to enable international growth
- leading a team to design a new operating model for a large independent oil company
- helping an international oil company model labour supply-and-demand dynamics in a core basin and developing a tailored employee-value proposition
Christopher joined McKinsey in 2008, having completed a masters and doctorate in chemical engineering at the University of Cambridge. He has also worked in our Houston office.
Published work
“bp: An agility pioneer in the energy industry,” McKinsey & Company, November 2021
“Unleashing the power of communication in agile transformations,” blog entry, McKinsey & Company, August 2021
“The impact of agility: How to shape your organization to compete,” McKinsey & Company, May 2021
“How the British Field Army headquarters shifted to agile ways of working,” McKinsey & Company, November 2020
“Agile resilience in the UK: Lessons from COVID-19 for the ‘next normal’,” McKinsey & Company, October 2020
“Lean management or agile? The right answer may be both,” McKinsey & Company, July 2020
“An operating model for the next normal: Lessons from agile organizations in the crisis,” McKinsey & Company, June 2020
“Agility to action: Operationalizing a value-driven agile blueprint,” McKinsey & Company, June 2020
“Brexit: The bigger picture—Embracing agility in a volatile world,” McKinsey & Company, December 2019
“Building agility in the British Army’s headquarters,” McKinsey & Company, October 2019
“The journey to an agile organization,” McKinsey & Company, May 2019
“Giants can dance: Agile organizations in asset-heavy industries,” McKinsey & Company, May 2019
“How to select and develop individuals for successful agile teams: A practical guide,” McKinsey & Company, December 2018
“How to mess up your agile transformation in seven easy (mis)steps,” McKinsey & Company, April 2018
“Activate agility: the five avenues to success,” McKinsey & Company, February 2018
“The five trademarks of agile organizations,” McKinsey & Company, January 2018
“What it takes to be successful: Three hallmarks of a healthy oil and gas organization,” McKinsey & Company, September 2017
“Rethinking the oil and gas organization,” McKinsey Quarterly, December 2016
“The oil and gas organization of the future,” McKinsey & Company, September 2016
“Capturing value from M&A in upstream oil & gas,” McKinsey & Company, July 2016
“Unlocking the benefits of a tailored upstream operating model,” McKinsey & Company, October 2015
“Adopting a through-cycle approach to talent management,” McKinsey & Company, July 2015
“Organizing to enable the shift from volume to value,” McKinsey & Company, October 2013
Education
University of Cambridge, King's College
PhD, chemical engineering
University of Cambridge, King's College
MEng, chemical engineering
University of Cambridge, King's College
BA, chemical engineering