For this interview, Heidrick & Struggles’ Sherree Kendall sat down with Emma Delaney, executive vice president at BP, to discuss balancing growth and sustainability. Delaney, who has exposure and experience in both the upstream and the downstream verticals, shares how that has influenced her approach to leadership, emphasizing the importance of the strength and power of the team. She also talks about balancing being impactful as well as approachable and shares what skills and capabilities she believes business leaders will need to deploy in order to successfully lead an organization in the future.

Below is a full transcript of the episode, which has been lightly edited for clarity.

Welcome to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of diversified solutions across senior-level executive search, leadership assessment and development, team and organizational effectiveness, and culture shaping. Every day, we speak with leaders around the world about how they are meeting rising expectations and managing through volatile times, thinking about individual leaders, teams, organizations, and society. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Sherree Kendall: Hi, I'm Sherree Kendall. I'm a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ London office and a member of the Industrial Practice, where I lead the global energy sector. I am delighted that in today's podcast we speak to Emma Delaney. She is the executive vice president at BP, where she has spent 28 years both in the upstream and the downstream verticals. Prior to joining BP’s executive team in 2020, Emma held a variety of senior leadership roles, including regional president for West Africa, global BD upstream, and a number of roles in her earlier career in the downstream vertical of the business.

Emma, it is delightful to speak to you today. Thank you for taking the time.

Emma Delaney: Well, thanks, Sherree, and thanks for inviting me. 

Sherree Kendall: Maybe you could start us off by walking us through your path to your current role and what it is like to be an EVP at BP.

Emma Delaney: I'll save you a rundown of my whole CV. When you said 28 years just now, it made me jump a little because when I joined the graduate scheme in BP, I never thought I'd be here 28 years later. But I think for me, just thinking about the career path, there's always been a new challenge around the corner, and I've changed roles every three years or so, which is not uncommon in our industry. Somewhere along the way, I had a choice between more of a finance path and a general management path, and that I think was a big influencer in where I've ended up today, is making a choice: are you going down one route or another? But for me, it has been a really exciting time, lots of challenges along the way. And actually energy is one of those sectors where it impacts everyone's lives, and it also demands this massive team effort to deliver. Whether you're talking about delivering the development of a natural gas field or whether you're talking about delivering fuel into an aircraft, no matter what part of the energy value chain you're in, there's a huge team effort behind it, and it's the teams and the people that has kept me interested and kept me here so long.

Sherree Kendall: So, Emma, what is it like to be the EVP at BP, and is the role what you expected?

Emma Delaney: Every new role has challenges and surprises, and this one certainly had quite a few surprises to begin with because as I started this role, we were just in the throes of the Covid pandemic. It was mid-2020, and the top priorities were keeping our people safe and keeping our operations running. That was quite a surprise to be starting in that way, but I did learn a lot and come up the learning curve very quickly. And the Covid pandemic had a very different impact on the different parts of our businesses. So I run three global businesses in Castrol, Aviation, and EV charging, and then three regional mobility and convenience businesses. And as you can imagine, the impact on say the aviation business versus the convenience business was quite different during Covid. So dealing with that rapidly changing business environment was quite new, not expected. And then in 2022 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that was really another surprise. And for our business, we had to rewire essentially the product flows at that time, so again another unexpected to deal with. 

There's massive variety in the role. So we're dealing with everything from, you know, selling coffees to, you know, the long-term strategy of our refineries. And so that variety I find fascinating. Back to my point on the energy industry itself has always fascinated me because of the impact it has. So the variety has been exciting. And I'd say also the, you know, what I love about the job is really the chance to get out and about and meet colleagues and customers around the globe who keep our business going. I love finding out what's similar, what's different in a diverse set of businesses, and of course that's not possible without your team. 

Sherree Kendall: And you know, just picking up on that as well and sort of what we said earlier about your career so far with BP, you're one of the leaders in that business. You've had exposure and experience in both the upstream and the downstream verticals. How has that influenced your approach to leading this global energy business?

Emma Delaney: When I meet colleagues, it is quite unusual to have spent time in both the downstream and the upstream. I started my career in the downstream. I spent seven or eight years there, and then a big chunk of my time in the upstream. Particularly as I reflect on my time in the upstream, it's a very capital-intensive business, and you're making investment decisions whereby the time your project is up and running, the business climate could have changed quite a bit. So you need to make decisions which are resilient to the low cycle, you're often making very long-term investment decisions and often you're working with JVs, within joint ventures or partnerships. So I learned a lot about building a robust framework for decisions that can last a long time. And in the upstream as well, you're often in remote locations where you can have a significant impact on the communities where you operate. So how to build local skills and how to build the opportunities for local communities to participate in the business and in your projects is important. And through all of that, I learned a lot I think about trust, transparency, and team cohesion, if you like. And as I reflect on the downstream now, particularly in the last few years, some things are quite different. So in downstream, it's much more day-to-day optimization of a big system, of an energy system. You know, our teams every day, every week, every month, are working with trading, with refining, with the sales and marketing teams to optimize the energy in and out of the system. And so it's very diverse week to week, it's very intense and operational. Nonetheless, I think these skills of building trust, transparency, conviction in what you're doing, and this team cohesion, I think those skills are universal.

Sherree Kendall: I think that, Emma, that's really interesting, and you keep coming back very strongly to a similar theme, you know, which is the strength and the power of the team. And so if we think about leadership, which leadership capabilities and skill sets do you think are the most important? 

Emma Delaney: In terms of characteristics, I think this building trust is fundamental. Building team cohesion—why did I say that? Because you can have a number of brilliant individuals but there's, if there's no cohesion within the team, if you're not going after a collective objective, I think then you don't get the best out of everybody. And I think transparency is important, being able to have the tough conversations together. So for me, you know, how do I think about that? Getting clear on your direction of travel is a must. Where are we going and why are we going there? So this direction of travel is important, because then you say, “OK, who's the team that I need on the pitch to get there, and what's in the way?” So for me, that sort of clarity of direction of travel and then assembling a team of people who can go in that direction and achieve the mission is important.

Sherree Kendall: I'm really curious about how you balance the seniority that you have to be impactful but approachable. So how do you stay close to people, particularly in the teams that you lead? They're so large and the volume of people that you have but yet you are approachable, and I'm really curious as to how you achieve that. 

Emma Delaney: Sherree, I'll come back to something I talked about a couple of times, about building trust. And it's a big team, as you said, with the acquisition of TravelCenters of America and our share of BP Bunge just this year, we now have 58,000 people in the organization. When I say you can't do everything yourself, I really mean that, you cannot do everything yourself, and building a leadership team which has clarity of mission and then team cohesion, what do we do together and then execute, go execute on it, has been and continues to be absolutely critical. And getting out and meeting people, for me, is a really important part of the job. Why? Because if you can break down the power distance relationship—which exists not just in Western societies but I think is pretty universal in the business environment—if you can break down that power distance relationship, you have genuine interest. And I'm genuinely interested, I love learning new things. I was just in Brazil a couple of weeks ago and learned about agricultural productivity, something I never really thought I would know anything about, and of course I know a tiny, infinitesimal sliver of knowledge. But having spent a week with the team in the field, I learned a lot. 

And so I think you mentioned, “How are you approachable?” Genuinely interested in the teams, how work gets done in the field, what gets in the way, and critically how you react to bad news. And when people give you bad news, whether it's in a safety matter, whether it's in an operational matter, whether it's a financial matter, whether it's on a compliance, how you react and how you deal with bad news. If people know that they can tell you bad news, it helps people to talk to you about their issues. And nobody's perfect, and in fact nor are leaders perfect, and there's always something that you're working on yourself. And I think when you talk about that and are open about that, I think that helps to break down this power distance relationship as well.

Sherree Kendall: So, Emma, if we look ahead and we think about the challenges which are not insignificant, you know, if we think about BP’s role in contributing to global energy transition, what are the leadership challenges that will face you and your fellow EVPs about balancing growth with sustainability?

Emma Delaney: It's a brilliant question and one we spend a lot of time thinking about in the exec team. I think the energy transition is happening at a different pace in different places—so underway, but it will unfold in a different way across the world and across different markets. And for us at BP, we've been clear on our direction of travel, the big line, if you like, the big lines for us is a transition from an international oil company to an integrated energy company, and we believe that by doing this it will drive resilience in the long term. As part of that we're investing both in today's energy systems—so oil, gas production—and we're also investing in tomorrow's energy systems. So for example, in my part of the business, we're investing in EV charging, in biofuels. Biofuels are a drop-in fuel, you can drop them in today, and they blend and bring down the carbon intensity of any fleet. For example, EV charging. As we see EV charging rolling out, and again, that's a classic example of where it's different pace in different markets. And investing alongside what you see your customers, what's customer-driven, what we see our customers wanting. 

So you asked about the leadership challenge. I think leadership challenge in terms of a world where a lot is, you know, the pace of change is probably faster now than at any time in the last 10 years. And so as leaders how do we, how can we be adaptable but not flip-flop the whole time? So how can you be adaptable to the environment and the external business environment in which you operate, and at the same time, you’ve got to be resilient. So I talked earlier about how do you get clear on the direction of travel. So you have conviction on your direction of travel, I think that helps you stay resilient in a world where lots of things are changing. So I think adaptable but resilient at the same time. 

Sherree Kendall: The challenges are many. So in terms of the biggest challenge for you and for the part of the business that you lead, what do you think that will be in the next 12 months, 18 months, two years? 

Emma Delaney: The biggest challenges in the near term for our part of the business, but I think some of that would be universal in our industry, is number one, how do you maintain a strong talent pipeline for our sector? There's so much change, and there's also much competition from other sectors. So that's really on my mind, how do you maintain a strong talent pipeline? How can you be a magnet for talent, if you like, and how can we be a magnet for talent? And I think the second big thing on my mind is customer needs are evolving, and how can we meet customer needs and make it easy to do business with us? You know, we've been in business over 100 years, and I have to say some of our systems and processes are not exactly super modern. And then more modern companies, if I think about how I do business as a consumer every day with some of the more modern companies, we need to be able to be as easy to do business with as those. And so that's both a technology digital challenge and also a challenge of how do you stay up to date with your customers, how their needs are changing, and how we can respond fast to those in a world where everything moves fast. 

Sherree Kendall: So, Emma, just sort of thinking about final learnings—what skills and capabilities do you expect business leaders to deploy in order to successfully lead an organization? 

Emma Delaney: I think that being a talent magnet, so being able to attract, develop, and retain talent, senior talent, is critical. Our leaders all need to do that. I think we also need our leaders to—it's back to this point I was talking about earlier, adaptable but also resilient, because you need both in today's world. Getting clear on your strategic direction and then not being afraid to change, to adapt course as required, because things change. So I think this concept of adaptability and resilience. Number three, we talked about digital technology. There's so much is changing. Being fluent, and we talk about being fluent in languages and I love languages. Trying to get fluent in digital is a new skill for me, so I'm enjoying learning about that and that's when I think that will just become increasingly important for leaders. And if I really stand back, particularly as, you know, we talk about business and society and customers and communities, I think integrity really matters, because business exists in society, and over time, we need to work with trust in the communities and with the communities with whom we coexist.

Sherree Kendall: Wonderful. Emma, thank you so much. Thank you for making the time to speak with us today.

Thanks for listening to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. To make sure you don’t miss the next conversation, please subscribe to our channel on your preferred podcast app. And if you’re listening via LinkedIn or YouTube, why not share this with your connections? Until next time.

About the interviewer

Sherree Kendall (skendall@heidrick.com) is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ London office and a member of the global Industrial, CEO & Board of Directors, and Corporate Officers practices.