Principal Technical Manager, Lubes

Company
HSB Solomon
Location
London , United Kingdom

HSB Solomon Associates LLC, a subsidiary of Hartford Steam Boiler and Munich Re, is seeking candidates for a Principal Technical Manager – Lubes Study position to work in a dynamic, fast-paced business environment. Solomon is the leading performance improvement company for the global energy industry, serving clients in nearly 80 countries, with global headquarters in Dallas and regional offices in Houston, London, and Manama. Solomon provides data-driven, strategic insight across the energy industry, leading to greater efficiency, reliability, and profitability.

BASIC FUNCTION

The Principal Technical Manager – Lubes Study provides technical input to Solomon’s Worldwide Paraffinic Lube Refinery Performance Analysis benchmarking study (Lube Study) and consulting projects. The Lube Study covers base oils, waxes, and specialties produced from base oil manufacturing plants, often associated to a fuel’s refinery.  The Principal Technical Manager will provide Refining and Lubes operational industry expertise and be able to analyze technical operational data to provide business insights. The Technical Manager will have knowledge of current industry operational trends and be comfortable working with Refining and Lubes technical data and interfacing with clients at multiple levels.  This position resides within the Refining and Logistics Business Unit, and it is integral to the overall management of the Lubes Benchmarking Study.

RESPONSIBLITIES 

       Lubes Technical Roadmap

• Responsible for stewarding the technical content of Solomon’s Lube Study to enable long-term market growth and business objectives.

• Owns and leads enhancement of the Worldwide Paraffinic Lube Refinery Performance Analysis technical scope, benchmarking methodology & calculations, and study insight generation.

• Conceptualizes, defines, and implements changes to study scope, metrics, and deliverables to address current and future industry challenges.

• Learn to help and contribute to the execution of other Solomon benchmarking studies.

        Industry Trends & Market Intelligence

• Keeps abreast of industry trends and key client initiatives and applying that market intelligence to evolve the Lube Study offerings.

• Maintains contact with Base Oil and Lubricant industry community through the research and analysis of Solomon proprietary and publicly available data, with the objective of developing insights pertaining to relevant current market dynamics.

• Establishes Solomon into a thought leadership position within the base oil industry. Develop original research and content to be divulged via conference participations, specialized magazine articles, and public events.

• Increases client value by expanding and deepening the insights that the Lube Study participants receive from study participation.

       Application of New Technologies & Analytical Methodologies

• Responsible for applying digital technologies and analytical methodologies to uncover new classes of insights from Solomon’s intellectual property and databases.

• Responsible for defining infrastructure improvements that increase the efficiency of both client study participation and Solomon study execution, as well as reducing the effort required to obtain meaningful performance insights.

• Interfacing with clients and internal stakeholders to provide client business value. Execution of lube and fuels operational consulting projects.

       Internal Collaboration

• Proactively collaborates with other Study Managers (Fuels, Olefins, Benchmarking Product Manager, Executive Vice President of Intellectual Property, and Technology Team) in coordinating technical study improvement activities in alignment with company timelines and resource availability.

• Leads the Lube Study advisor team during execution phases of the study cycle, including input data review, study deliverables creation, and client results presentations.

EDUCATION

Required:

• B.S. degree in Engineering (Chemical, Mechanical, Electrical, Petroleum) or other related engineering degrees

       Preferred:

• Master’s degree and/or advanced professional degree (e.g., MBA, PhD, etc.)

WORK EXPERIENCE

Required:

• 12+ years of operating company experience and/or industry consulting or service company experience

• 8+ years’ experience in the Lube Industry with sufficient exposure and understanding of base oil manufacturing processes, lube market dynamics, and industry drivers

Preferred:

• Operating experience in both solvent and hydroprocessing base oil manufacturing processes, either in a technical, operating, planning, and scheduling capacity

• Base oil sales and marketing experience and an understanding of what global dynamics contribute to base oils price fundamentals

• Career tenure spanning multiple sites/facilities and multiple countries

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Required:

• Successfully create competitive and breakthrough strategies that show a clear connection between vision and action.

• Demonstrated ability to use knowledge of business drivers and how strategies and tactics play out in the market to guide actions

• Ability to manage complexity by acquiring data from multiple and diverse sources when solving problems; uncovers root causes to difficult problems

• Ability to cultivate innovation by coming up with useful ideas that are new, better, or unique; introduces new ways of looking at problems

• Ability to gain insight into customer needs; identify opportunities that benefit the customer; builds and delivers solutions that meet customer expectations

• Ability to develop new advisory business, provide support to Business Development Team, and ability to expand services/solutions

• Excellent people skills with the ability to successfully collaborate in a global, multi-disciplinary, diverse, matrixed, and dynamic team environ

• Familiar with data analytics methods and tools

• Understanding of business operations, key performance metrics, and the ability to align data analysis with strategic business objectives.

• Ability to apply Solomon methodologies as analysis tools to support recommended improvement changes to a client’s current operations

• Demonstrate superior analytical skills, quantitative problem-solving skills even when problems are not well defined 

• Knowledge of engineering calculations, spreadsheet, or database expert user

• Demonstrated ability to influence change and support/drive change management which positively impacts overall profitability of the business

•  Effectively and efficiently navigate workflows and processes to accomplish work and the ability to identify and recommend improvements

• Proven track record of continuous improvement and creating new and better ways for the organization to be successful

• Meticulous attention to detail, looking for anomalies in results, reviewing work for quality, with a commitment to delivering accurate and high-quality work within specified deadline

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to break down complex problems, derive insights from data, and provide actionable recommendations.

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills including excellent verbal, written,            listening, presentation skills, and public speaking

• Excellent people skills with the ability to successfully collaborate in a global, multi-disciplinary, diverse, matrixed, and dynamic team environment

• Proficient in Microsoft® Office products such as Word, Excel®, and PowerPoint®

Preferred:

• Understanding of Solomon lube studies, normalization techniques, and metrics from client perspective.

OTHER

• Willing to travel approximately 20% of the time, both domestically and internationally.

• The position can be based in one of Solomon’s offices located in Dallas, TX; Houston, TX, London, GB; or Manama, Bahrain.