Successful change requires leadership alignment on both the strategic issues and the solutions to address them. I work with the executive team to support setting the direction for change by helping to identify the key issues, developing options for response and formulating implementation plans appropriate to the organisation’s capability and culture.
A business strategist with two decades of experience working with executive teams and boards, I have a track record of developing and gaining support for both corporate and business unit strategies. I believe that strategy development should be supported by a robust marketing understanding in a competitive context, as well as clear knowledge of both a firm’s capabilities and its appetite for risk.
The organization of a firm must support strategy implementation; the organisation of successful firms is often itself a source of competitive advantage. I am an experienced organisation architect with substantial change management expertise to develop capabilities aligned with strategic direction. My experience has been developed over many years working with multi-nationals, individual business units and department level teams, both as a consultant and as part of management teams.
All businesses have the innate potential to achieve significant improvements in performance. I provide support to management teams to develop their own improvement approach drawing on relevant, well-established tools and methodologies. While there are many approaches that can be successful, the challenge is to develop a method that fits with “how we work”. This requires an integrated and aligned approach involving leadership, culture development and performance improvement methods.
Experience gained over 27 years in a range of technical, management, strategic advisory and consulting roles in the areas of upstream development and operations, global and regional energy markets, including downstream gas distribution, electricity generation and gas and power marketing in competitive and developing markets.
Experience in developing project delivery organisations, both at portfolio level and individual major projects from $200m to $20 billion. Expertise includes: organization design, role design, leadership development, establishment of project performance management and reporting systems, and interventions to address project performance issues. Conducted lessons learned on project performance and presented at Board level and international conferences.
Wider exposure to asset intensive industries including chemicals, pharmaceuticals and transportation, including rail with a focus on investment strategy and operational performance improvement
While my experience is largely focused on asset intensive industries, the principles of operations design are equally applicable to service and knowledge-intensive environments. Consulting experience in the services sector includes;
Michael is an independent management consultant based in Brisbane, Australia. He serves executive clients across Australasia on strategy, organisation and performance improvement. He founded Hollewand Consulting Associates Pty Ltd in 2013.
From 2003 to 2013 he held a range of senior leadership positions at BG Group, an international energy company, based in the UK. Joining initially as Chief Strategist, he made significant contributions to the Group’s growth and LNG strategies advising the CEO, Board and Executive team during a period that saw market capitalisation grow from c. $20bn to $80bn. Other roles included functional oversight of energy markets and downstream assets, economics and M&A. In 2007 he was appointed director of an organisation transformation program reporting to the CEO. In 2010 he was assigned to QGC in Australia, to support the delivery of the $20bn+ QCLNG project, serving on the management team until 2013.
Prior to BG Group, Michael spent five years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company based in London, serving clients in the energy, industrial and pharmaceutical sectors. Prior to McKinsey, Michael held operational and technical roles in the oil and gas and pharmaceuticals industries.
Throughout his career, a major focus of his work has been strategy development and improving capital productivity and operational performance in the oil and gas sector. He has been an invited public speaker on both topics.
Michael holds a degree in chemical and materials engineering from Auckland University, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
In 2014 he was appointed an Adjunct Professor in the UQ Business School at the University of Queensland, where he provides part-time support to the MBA and Executive Education programs teaching integrated strategy and operations design
