Gautam Swami is the manager of corporate research and development (R&D) at NOV, where he formerly led new product development and the commercialization of innovative technologies. In his current role, Swami contributes to strategic planning, budget management, and technical due diligence. His projects also leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver solutions for engineering and business functions.
I spoke with Swami about building a career in oil and gas R&D, how innovation is shaping the industry, and his guidance to young professionals.
EW: In your 20-year career, you have held leadership positions in oilfield services, project management, finance, and R&D in India, the UAE, and the US. What attracted you to the oil and gas industry?
GS: I am a firm believer that eradicating energy poverty before financial poverty is the golden pathway to economic growth for a country. I am originally from Pune, India, and our local university’s petroleum engineering department is one of the oldest in India. That, coupled with the potential to enrich the lives of billions of consumers worldwide, inspired me to seek an academic route into our amazing industry. Hearing alums speak highly about the spirit of adventure, the multicultural workforce, and potential stints abroad were clinchers for me. I feel blessed that my professional and personal horizons have widened with each position I have held.
EW: With your diverse background and skillset, how did you come to specialize in R&D, even though you joined NOV to manage new product development services in 2019?
GS: I was part of NOV’s new product development team from 2019 to 2021. Traditionally, we have launched new and updated products into the market with our financial and engineering disciplines anchored to customer expectations and market conditions. This experience led me to join our low-carbon technologies team from 2021 through 2023, where we evaluated many new technologies and potential partnerships in areas like offshore wind and carbon capture.
Pursuant to that, I moved into corporate R&D in 2024. While new product development projects have relatively shorter time horizons, R&D allows us to explore adjacencies across sectors and overcome epistemological breaks. R&D is a key driver of growth, as it sits at the confluence of large potential markets and emerging technologies.
Specializing in R&D came naturally to me, given my experience in delivering business cases. Judging companies in venture programs and business plan competitions and applying financial discipline to decision-making are fungible between R&D and other roles. Being a perpetual student of markets and technologies has been immensely helpful, and learning from experts is its own reward. Keeping pace with changes in technology, policy, and finance helps me to navigate the regulatory and competitive landscapes, as well.
EW: Over the past 2 decades, the oil and gas industry has seen major advancements in areas like digitalization, data-driven R&D, simulation, and modeling. Given the recent acceleration of AI technologies, what excites you in R&D right now? Thinking about technology and operations, how do you see industry evolving, and how are you contributing to this change?
GS: The opportunity set in data science, Internet of Things, and machine learning matured rapidly over the past decade, and many new solutions optimized drilling operations. Since then, more advanced generative technologies have opened a new frontier of possibilities in R&D. A larger pool of complex models, access to large volumes of well data, and falling prices of computation have proved to be major tailwinds for research.
Early natural language processing models utilizing around 100 million parameters were considered groundbreaking just 5 years ago. Today’s models routinely process more than one trillion parameters—an increase of more than 10,000 times! This giant leap forward has allowed us to explore solutions that combine operational technology with information technology. Sensor-based and Industrial Internet of Things projects have accelerated value creation in many projects and will continue to benefit from new models. We are constantly exploring potential improvements to support more complex decision-making.
Another interesting opportunity set has emerged more recently, which utilizes AI agents and agentic AI. Our industry could soon see tools called “agents” solve multistep problems autonomously. These agents will be the outcome of current research on agentic AI, which centers around autonomy. Our team is exploring new AI tools for internal use and potential external deployment over time.
EW: Oil and gas is a high-risk industry, and health, safety, and environment (HSE) is a critical priority. How do you balance R&D innovation with safety concerns for people, equipment, and the environment?
GS: The continued safety of operators and crew members is our most important consideration while aiming for performance improvements. So, our solutions always place operator safety at the heart of design. In R&D, we balance potential increases in speed and efficiency with adequate safeguards for the movement of heavy equipment. This ensures that we design around zones of human presence and deploy advanced visual and electronic aids to monitor rig floors. With each innovation, we reduce the risk of injuries, loss of control, and damage to equipment. Our commitment to the environment includes a comprehensive management system that comprises policies, processes, and risk analyses. Constant training and quick access to experienced managers provide our team with appropriate knowledge and guidance.
EW: One often thinks of R&D in scientific terms, but in addition to technology commercialization, your scope of responsibility includes business outcomes such as strategic planning, budget and project management, due diligence, and financial analysis. Are there common elements in your approach to these diverse functions? Tell us about your role.
GS: Connecting seemingly unconnected dots to discern patterns can open new avenues for growth. Innovation drives growth in the long run, and advanced products ultimately help to achieve more with less. Our technologies serve to derisk critical processes and projects, and communicating our value using cost-benefit analyses and complex financial models is imperative. Leveraging our technology portfolio to navigate through business cycles requires keeping an eye on commodity-price cycles and capital expenditure trends, as well.
Our product life cycle management discipline gives us the flexibility to remain responsive in all market conditions. Putting ourselves in our customers’ shoes helps us to tie our outcomes to our customers’ vision. Effective communication among stakeholders is also critical in developing and executing a shared vision. In the end, these key drivers come together when crafting growth strategies and managing projects.
EW: During your career, you have been awarded significant R&D grants, both in the US and abroad. Can you tell us more about the objectives of such grant programs? How does your grant work contribute to advancing the industry?
GS: We participate in grant-funded research and advisory projects with consortia comprising industry and academia regularly. We work closely with partners to move ideas through the innovation cycle and avoid the proverbial “Valley of Death” in which projects can get stuck in the risky phase between basic research and successful commercialization. Some grant programs are directed at standardizing specifications, while others solve topical problems using novel methodologies. We have made key contributions to research projects in geothermal energy, methane emissions monitoring, and offshore wind. Corporate partners leverage grant programs to patent and commercialize technologies that build long-term competitive moats. Hence, industry-academia collaborations are critical to deepening our expertise and absorbing new talent into the industry.
EW: While in India, you earned a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering, followed by two graduate degrees in the US—a master’s degree in energy management and an MBA—both from Tulane University, a decade later. You also hold certifications in LNG markets, risk analysis, and AI. How important has your academic background and pursuing advanced executive education been to your career?
GS: Our industry’s dynamic nature requires us to seek new frontiers of efficiency and competitive advantage continuously. Starting with petroleum engineering, and then learning finance, international business, and energy economics gave me deep insights into global energy reserves, production, transport, and conversion into useful energy like fuels and electricity.
Structured learning, coupled with candid conversations and constructive feedback from colleagues and experts, have proven invaluable in my career. R&D is multifaceted, and effective communication and resource allocation are critical skills. Accepting roles with higher responsibilities allows me to learn new concepts and improve decision-making. This approach has helped me to develop new skills and contribute to the growth of my teams.
EW: Your education and career experience provided you with technical, scientific, and business skills. How did you develop the leadership skills you employ to manage cross-functional and high-performing teams?
GS: I have been fortunate to receive excellent mentorship which instilled in me the need to align individual abilities with my team’s objectives. Early in my career, working in multidisciplinary project teams shaped my thinking around organizational behavior and interpersonal dynamics. Demanding technical projects with tight deadlines and limited resources taught me the importance of focus and decisiveness. Later in my career, collaborating with experts from business and corporate functions taught me important lessons.
Adapting strategies to end-users’ changing needs is a key lesson, which I learned during the past few cycles. Effective internal and external communication, delivering content for executive-level consumption, and prioritizing projects to reflect changing market conditions have enabled me to manage teams effectively. Ultimately, bringing out the best in one’s colleagues and making judgment calls when faced with ambiguity are key to leading high-performing teams.
EW: You are also a strong advocate for professional affiliations, networking, mentoring, advancing the industry, and growing the next generation of oil and gas professionals through your numerous volunteer and judging activities. Why is this important to you?
GS: Our industry’s global presence has always provided me with enriching experiences, and things have come full circle for me over the past 20 years. Professional bodies provide invaluable connections and opportunities to learn about new developments in other disciplines and geographies. I attribute my growth to selfless managers and mentors who opened many doors for me and ensured I was never lacking in resources. Very often, great expertise is just a phone call away.
Now, I am happy to share my insights and offer feedback on new ideas in venture programs and business plan competitions. To my mind, helping colleagues succeed by honing their innate talents is the highest calling. I also find volunteering for social and cultural causes very fulfilling. It rewards you with a new universe of friendships, while addressing visible needs. My family and I cherish the numerous friendships we continue to make in our global assignments through social engagements.
EW: Your professional affiliations include being an SPE Lifetime Member, and you served as treasurer of SPE’s Management Technical Section (MTS), among other volunteer roles. In September 2024, you coauthored a paper and presentation for SPE’s Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition on “Management as Technical Discipline in Energy.” How has the concept of technical management evolved in the energy sector? What are the takeaways that company leaders should know?
GS: The MTS is one of SPE’s youngest, yet most dynamic technical sections. Our taxonomy covers portfolio analysis, risk assessment, benchmarking and performance indicators, and personnel competence, among other topics. Technical management is a complex discipline, given the variety of challenges involved in large investment decisions, and it continuously evolves to meet the industry’s demands for higher output, lower marginal costs, and safer operations. Given a company’s relative size, its position in the value-chain, and its level of integration, technical management becomes critical to delivering sustained growth.
The MTS brings together experts, who share best practices and deliver insightful content worldwide. Current and emerging leaders have benefitted from deeper insights into newer techniques, tools, and platforms that can be deployed at scale in their respective projects. Benchmarking is an important exercise in comparative analysis, and the MTS has shared key tools in this discipline, too.
More than 12,000 MTS members study the potential churn in energy mixes, and long-term national and company-level commitments in detail. Our active members and impactful programming led SPE to award the MTS the Best Technical Section Award at the 2024 Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition.
EW: What guidance do you give your team members and the young professionals you mentor in terms of building a career in oil and gas? Where do you see the greatest opportunities for career advancement? What skills will be essential over the next decade?
GS: Over time, my philosophy regarding adding value to the oil and gas market has evolved into a robust process. Step one is to clarify the end-users’ pain points. Step two is to focus on removing those components that distract from addressing this pain point while reserving the right to add back some components when there are more resources available to justify changing the scope. Step three is to choose what to optimize for, which usually forces prioritization and compromise within competing interests. Finally, step four is to accelerate the pace of building key features of the desired product or solution, but only after there is clarity, focus, and discipline within the team.
There are many career opportunities that may seem unexciting initially but eventually emerge as major drivers of value creation in an environment of constrained growth or profitability. Adverse times usually drive discipline, and one can make significant contributions by bringing to bear deep insights into customer needs and powerful relationships that generate leadership’s buy-in and secure requisite resources. Processes that integrate fossil and renewable technologies and AI-driven product and workflow improvements are in the early stages of their evolution, and professionals can expect exciting growth opportunities in those spheres.
Lastly, adding a layer of adjacent skills outside of one’s core domain can enable professionals to view opportunities through a myriad of lenses. This ability is crucial to growth, as one can foresee potential setbacks and remedies well in advance. Skills like financial analysis, project management, scientific research, and technical communication will always hold professionals in good stead.
