Paal Kibsgaard: Schlumberger CEO

Paal Kibsgaard earned a petroleum engineering degree then went on complete a master’s degree from the Norwegian Institute of Technology. Paal started his career working for ExxonMobil in 1992. He began working for Schlumberger in 1997 as a reservoir engineer in Saudi Arabia.

At Schlumberger Paal held various field positions in technical sales and customer support including working as Wireline marketing manager Scandinavia. Next he was the GeoMarket manager for the Caspian region where he was based in Kazakhstan. Paal set up the structure of the Caspian Geomarket, preparing the area for oil and gas exploration and development activity.

He became president of Schlumberger Drilling and Measurements in February 2003 then became the vice president for personnel in April 2006. Paal was vice president for engineering, manufacturing and sustaining before he became the group president for reservoir characterization in May 2009. The following year in February 2010 he moved further up the corporate ladder as chief operating officer. His role as chief operating officer came to an end on August 2011 when he was named CEO of Schlumberger Limited.

Schlumberger is an oil field services company which provides technology, project management and information solutions for the oil and gas industry. Schlumberger’s stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, on the Euronext Paris, Euronext Amsterdam, London and the SIX Swiss stock exchanges.  For 2013 revenue from continuing operations reached $45.27 billion.

The firm employs around 126,000 people in over 85 countries representing more than 140 nationalities. It operates through two business segments: Schlumberger supplies a wide range of products and services from formation evaluation through directional drilling, well cementing, and stimulation, well completion and productivity to consulting, software, information management and IT infrastructure service the support core industry operational processes.

WesternGeco is the world’s largest seismic company and provides advanced acquisition and data processing services.

Founded in 1927 Paal leads a company which helps the world produce the energy it needs of which searching for new sources of supply is becoming more challenging making Schlumberger even more relevant.