African energy mandates have traditionally been routed through European search networks. But the capital, the operating businesses and the senior decision-makers are increasingly Asian, and a search starting from London is starting from the wrong end.
A note from Andy. This is the first edition of this newsletter.
I have spent twenty-five years in oil and gas recruitment, the last five of those inside bp leading executive hiring across Asia Pacific for the top 1200 leaders. Before bp, executive search across the UK and APAC energy markets. I have been on the client side commissioning search firms, and I have been on the search side delivering them. I know what good looks like inside an operator, an EPC contractor, or a renewables developer, and I know why most external search partners fall short.
Each month I will share what I am hearing across the projects, the operators, and the contractors. APAC is the geographic centre of gravity, but most of the senior roles I work touch the Middle East and Africa as well, and the newsletter will reflect that.
EPC: the pipeline is long, the talent pool is tight
Asia Pacific carries the most active EPC project pipeline in the world right now. Energy infrastructure across the region, combined with accelerating investment in renewable energy, is driving demand for senior project leadership faster than the pool can supply it.
Project directors, country managers, and commercial leaders with genuine track records across FPSO, subsea, offshore floating production, and complex multi-stakeholder environments are being approached by multiple parties at once. Many of them are choosing to sit tight in current conditions, which makes the market for this profile harder to move than the headline numbers suggest.
The firms getting good shortlists quickly are the ones briefing with precision. A clear mandate reaches the right people. A vague one produces a long and slow process. That has always been true and it matters more when the pool is this tight.
If you are planning senior headcount for the second half of the year, the search needs to start before the role is urgent. By the time a project award is in and the clock is running, the best candidates have already had two or three conversations elsewhere.
Upstream oil and gas
A favourite line from one of my early bosses: "God puts hydrocarbons in godforsaken places." It still shapes how upstream search works.
The senior upstream roles I am working at the moment span some of the world's remotest and most challenging locations. Country managers, asset directors, drilling and subsurface leaders. For these roles you are rarely hiring somebody who is already in the country. You are hiring an expat with the right track record, often somebody who has run something similar in a different difficult geography. Sometimes you need local content, which becomes a sourcing exercise in its own right, working through networks rather than databases.
This is not search you can run from a list. It is search you run by knowing who is good, who is available, and who has done it before. After twenty-five years in the industry, plus the bp alumni network, our reach into these mandates is genuinely different from what most firms can access.
Renewables: APAC is moving from planning into build
The renewables story in APAC has shifted from intent to execution. Onshore and offshore wind developers across the region are moving from planning into delivery phase, and the gap between supply of experienced project directors and the demand for them is widening every quarter.
The challenge for firms hiring into this space is that the genuinely experienced renewables leaders are still concentrated in Europe, where the offshore wind industry matured a decade earlier. Bringing that experience into APAC is achievable, but it requires a search partner who can have the right conversation with the right person. The market does not respond to cold approaches at this level.
Africa from Asia: a building theme
A significant share of the senior search work I am doing right now connects an African role to a Singapore-based business. Operators and trading houses funded out of Asia are running African upstream assets, and the HR and leadership teams making these decisions are also sitting here, not just in London or Geneva.
The structural point is worth being direct about. African energy mandates have traditionally been routed through European search networks, especially the Francophone. But the capital, the operating businesses, and the senior decision-makers behind a lot of African energy infrastructure are increasingly Asian. The talent for these roles often built their careers across APAC and the Middle East. A search starting from London is starting from the wrong end.
This is the angle I am increasingly hired for. If you are running searches with African exposure out of an Asian base, it is worth a conversation.
Watch points
A few specific watch points across the energy infrastructure side.
Offshore EPC leadership across APAC is the busiest part of the market for me right now. Project directors and commercial leads with offshore floating production experience are particularly tight, and the firms moving on these profiles in Q3 will get the better shortlists.
Downstream and LPG leadership in Southern Africa continues to move. Real demand at mid-to-senior commercial and operations level. The mandates I am running in this space are building a clear picture of who is out there.
Drilling and subsurface leadership in difficult geographies stays competitive. If you have these roles on the roadmap for the second half of 2026, the conversation needs to start before the rig is moving, not after.
Sign-off
If you are hiring engineering, project, or commercial leadership across upstream, EPC, or renewables, I am easy to reach.