Career development

Mentoring Through Technology: Industry Leaders Video Library

Videos featuring industry leaders across all SPE disciplines are being collected. They will capture career advice for young professionals.

Puzzle pieces

The Industry Leaders Video Library is a new project launched by the Young Professional Coordinating Committee (YPCC) to help engage young professionals (YPs) and empower their careers. The goal of this initiative is to develop an online collection of video interviews with oil and gas leaders from SPE’s six technical disciplines. Interviews have been or will be conducted with professionals from all sectors of the industry.

The initial phase of the pilot project, carried out in Houston by YP volunteers Laura Johnson and Deepak M. Gala, comprised three interviews.

  • Drilling and completions—Fred Ng, general manager of engineering at Wild Well Control
  • Health, safety, security, environment and social responsibility—Tom Knode, HSE manager at Halliburton
  • Reservoir description and dynamics—Ganesh Thakur, vice president, global adviser, and Chevron fellow at Chevron Energy Technology Company, and 2012 SPE president

The Industry leaders who participated were asked to share their experiences, wisdom, career advice and anecdotes about their personal and professional lives. They discussed a variety of topics, ranging from technical and leadership challenges to mentoring opportunities. 
The remaining video interviews for the pilot will be conducted in the second half of this year with leaders of the remaining three technical disciplines.

  • Management and information
  • Production and operations
  • Projects, facilities, and construction

The YPCC is committed to develop online resources that provide broader accessibility for young members. An online library of videos is available to all members at http://www.spe.org/media/ym/industry-leaders.php. The committee hopes to build the video library over time. If you are interested in helping to coordinate future videos or have an idea for a video, or your company would like to become a sponsor of this initiative, please email yp@spe.org.

–Laura Johnson and Deepak M. Gala