The Backdrop
A Global Oil & Gas Field Services Company had contracted from ~$15B to ~$3B following Chapter 11. A new CEO and entirely new Leadership Team inherited a mandate to simultaneously restore earnings and pivot the portfolio toward new energy and digitization.
The Challenge
- Expand EBITDA margin from 15% → 20% within 3 years, doubling EBITDA to $1B+, while restructuring debt to restore shareholder confidence
- Close the valuation gap from 4x → 8x EBITDA, reestablishing standing within a peer basket of companies
- Unify a newly assembled, organizationally fatigued Leadership Team capable of running the business while driving concurrent transformation
The Approach
FulcrumQ engaged where value architecture and the talent question were inseparable. Five value hotspots were mapped — and three were found to carry 90% of available value. That concentration determined everything: 22 of 46 critical Role•Talent combinations became the entire focus. What Talent to Value made visible was structural: the Global Business Manager role family sat directly in the path of transformation. The supply chain function held 4 percentage points of unrealized EBITDA margin, led by someone operating without structural clarity. Leadership Team alignment — in a newly assembled team carrying organizational fatigue — was an execution risk, not a communication preference.
Value Concentration Finding
Three of five hotspots carried 90% of available value. Concentrating on 22 of 46 critical roles gave the Client a defensible prioritization framework — eliminating execution diffusion and establishing a direct causal line to $1B EBITDA.
Decision-Rights Realignment
A newly assembled Leadership Team buy-in was an execution risk. Three rounds of one-on-one sessions and structured pod-level meetings established explicit accountability by leadership tier — converting the value agenda from directive to operationally owned.
Role Leverage Insight
The supply chain leader was overwhelmed yet held 4 percentage points of EBITDA margin opportunity — the single largest lever. Data-grounded specificity on this misalignment unlocked improvement already present in the business, waiting only on role clarity.
Execution Risk Sequencing
A bottom-up model identified $150M in exposure across 12 critical roles, surfacing amplified interdependency risks invisible to standard analysis. When 2022 P&L pressure emerged, FulcrumQ’s sequenced framework was already positioned — driving Phase 2 engagement.
With value architecture established, Leadership Team decision rights clarified, and $150M in execution risk actively sequenced, the Client moved from post-bankruptcy stabilization to a structured $1B+ EBITDA path — doubling earnings within three years. Supply chain precision unlocked 4 percentage points of EBITDA margin. The valuation target doubled from 4x → 8x EBITDA. The precision of Talent to Value work drove the Client to expand across three additional phases of work.
At the moment of maximum reinvention, the distance between ambition and outcome is always a talent question — and the only way to compress it is to answer it with the precision of a science.
