A husband-and-wife duo boasting international oil and gas backgrounds have launched a new joint venture to deliver “transitional” leadership skills coaching for people and businesses in the North Sea energy industry.
James and Enas Fleming founded their original business, Glasgow firm Power Within Training and Development (PWTD), in 2017 after working abroad in oil and gas careers.
Mr Fleming is a former country director for Baker Hughes in northern Iraq and was later in a similar role with Weatherford in the Middle East. Mrs Fleming also worked for Baker Hughes, as a senior logistics supervisor.
Expanding into Aberdeen
The couple’s latest project has seen them team up with north-east entrepreneurs Beena Sharma and Jordan Ferguson to create Aberdeen-based Power Within Training UK (PWTUK).
Ms Sharma – who last year won a place on the Scotland-wide Unlocking Ambition business development programme, run by Scottish Enterprise and the national Can Do initiative – and Mr Ferguson both have considerable expertise in the oil & gas and construction industries, with a particular focus on behavioural change and business growth.
‘Vital leadership’
PWTUK aims to deliver “vital leadership, mindset and motivational tools” to help businesses – particularly in the oil & gas sector – meet the leadership demands of navigating the global energy transition.
Mr Fleming, managing director, PWTD, said: “This is a hugely exciting development for us. It will allow even more business leaders to access our transformational programmes.”
He added: “We are experiencing what is arguably the fastest and most challenging energy transition in history – to achieve it, businesses and their leaders will have to be equipped with the leadership, behavioural and motivational tools to drive their companies forward during this time of great change.
“That is something this new venture is perfectly placed to help them achieve.”
‘Missing piece of the jigsaw’
Ms Sharma, director PWTUK, said: “Over just a few decades, countries around the world are working to replace fossil fuels with zero-carbon energy from clean sources.
“Having the technology and infrastructure planning and implementation in place is one thing – but having the people development tools in place to help your leaders, and emerging leaders, thrive during this time is the missing piece of the jigsaw.
“We can help businesses and individuals ensure they have the essential skills to succeed in this global transition .”
Ms Sharma’s background is in health, safety and environment work, specialising in behavioural safety, but she has also worked in oil and gas, as well as construction.
She lived in London before moving to Aberdeen a few years ago.
Fellow PWTUK director Mr Ferguson boasts more than 14 years’ energy industry experience in senior positions in Europe and the US.
He said: “This is a great opportunity to expand on the continued success and growth of the company (PWTD) by offering its unique and unrivalled programmes to a new market.
‘Dynamic change’
“The businesses we work with benefit hugely in terms of preparedness for the future, delivering dynamic change, equipping their management teams with vital leadership skills and – most importantly – building their business success.”
PWTD aims to help people and businesses of all kinds excel by improving their motivation, self-belief, decision-making and leadership skills through an approach called motivational intelligence.
The firm recently launched what is claimed to be the world’s first SQA-approved executive diploma in leading with motivational intelligence.