In Conversation With
Chris McNeely & John Janssen, Capco Energy
UTILITIES
Wholesale
& Retail
Oil & Gas
Midstream
Trading & Risk Management
Energy Transition
Digital
Digital Trend Strategy
Customer Experience
Delivering Platforms
Next Gen Technology
Analytics
Process Improvement
Trading And Risk Management
Regulatory Compliance
Risk Analytics
& Reporting
Strategic Roadmaps
Consulting
IT Strategy & Advisory
Custom Application Development
Systems Integration
Information Management
Analytics & Visualization
Technology
Market Offerings
Having grown the legacy US Energy practice over the course of two decades, the past three years have seen a robust expansion in Brazil, says Roberta Gabarron, Partner & Brazil Energy Lead.
“Initially our Energy business in Brazil was focused on leveraging local software engineering resources that we had dedicated to delivering projects primarily to our US energy clients in addition to our work with our local Brazilian clients.
“Among those local clients is Petrobras, one of the five largest global energy majors, and we've provided significant scaled delivery ability to that account. The Brazil team also supports clients in the US at other global energy majors as a nearshore energy advisor, both from a technology and a functional standpoint.
“We have expertise across a dozen different disciplines, spanning program leadership and operational activities support, digital and analytical solutions, regulatory and compliance, integrated operations center, subsea and well integrity, equipment engineering, and safety, environment and health. Our capability and the size of our footprint in Brazil continues to evolve, and we are now doing significant volumes of work for new clients.”
Roberta Gabarron
Brazil
The energy sector has never been in a greater state of flux, driven by decarbonization, decentralization, geopolitical instability, demand growth and digitization.
“Many of our clients remain hyper-focused on the traditional fossil fuel space, not least exploration and production”, Chris notes. “However, the renewable energy transition is now well underway, and as businesses move to adapt to lower carbon expectations and a disrupted market landscape, the traditional lines between power, oil, gas and renewable sectors are blurring, in a global environment that is seeing significant demand growth for energy. This ever-evolving landscape is driving consulting spend, as businesses try to navigate the complexities and stay ahead of the curve.”
Opportunity in a disrupted industry landscape
As Chris notes, Capco has also recognized the opportunity for expansion beyond the US and Brazil into a number of other key markets around the world. First up is the UK, where a dedicated Energy practice was established at the end of 2023 to serve as a strong end-to-end transformation partner in the marketplace.
The UK practice is led by 20-year Capco veteran Rob Deakin, who brings to the role a track record of transformational consulting services experience at BP and Shell across Europe and North America, with specific experience in trading and operations consulting and strategic advice on regulatory remediation.
Capco has begun transformative work in the UK at two very large energy clients, as well as two regional energy companies, and the UK practice has recently added a number of senior experts dedicated to market making and sales leadership.
“Our strategy certainly looks to be paying off, with Rob and the UK team already making extremely good progress,” says Chris. “Over the next 18 months we plan to hire or appoint full-time Energy leadership in Canada, Europe and Asia Pacific as well.
“As recently as two years ago, our work across the globe was primarily delivered out of just two Capco offices – Houston and Dallas,” he adds. “Now we have real scale in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, we have growing scale in the UK, and there are offices in Orlando, Toronto, Geneva, Paris, Singapore, and India where we are doing some energy related work.
“The vision as the investment plan begins to play out is that we will continue to see our energy work become an ever larger part of Capco’s overall business where the company has offices around the world. And we are ambitious – we have targeted doubling our global energy revenue in a three-year period that ends at the completion of our fiscal year at the end of March 2027.”
Expanding Across the Globe
What WE Do
Our Domains and MArket Offerings
Growth beyond the Americas
Diversifying both geographically and across our core client portfolio will be key to driving more broad-based growth.
Building on the US Energy business’ track record of innovation and transformation, Capco’s new UK Energy practice is ideally placed to apply the company’s 25-years of expertise and experience in energy and financial services to resolve energy companies and utilities’ most complex challenges, says Rob Deakin, Partner and Head
of UK Energy.
“We soft-launched the UK business in November 2023 and within 12 months we established critical mass with three impressive clients secured and nearly 50 consultants deployed. Two of these three clients are major UK utilities, and the other is a multinational conglomerate where we are providing transformation services within their oil & gas trading division. We also have a robust pipeline of nextgen clients.
“Following this early success, we formally announced the UK Energy business in October 2024. We see real opportunities to bring the best of our capabilities to a new industry sector in the UK, supporting energy businesses and utilities with change initiatives across the value chain.
“We have also brought on some highly experienced senior leaders with proven track records in the energy industry to further accelerate the growth of the practice. Mark Pickering is an energy and commodities Chief Information Officer and advisor with over 35 years of information technology management and consulting experience at Global Fortune 500 companies, including EDF and Shell.
“Saeed Patel is a former CTO and Head of Business Transformation at EDF Trading who also spent almost a decade of his career at National Grid, while Simon Wheeler was previously with Energy One. Their insights, relationships and credentials will be key as we deliver on our mission of offering a truly differentiated proposition to the marketplace.
“We are investing in growth, and actively drawing down on the experience, clients, assets and accelerators of our US and Brazil Energy practices. We see significant crossover between the financial services and energy industries in terms of the challenges and opportunities we can help our Energy clients to navigate. In particular, we are transferring and infusing the best of our experiences and skills from within our financial services Data and Technology programs.”
UK ENERGY
Chris McNeely
Partner & Global Energy Lead
We've been continuously engaged with some clients for almost a quarter of a century, working across their enterprises on a multitude of different transformative projects.
Rob Deakin
Driving innovation, today and tomorrow
Commodity trading & risk management platforms are an important facet of day-to-day operations for a broad spectrum of firms in the energy sector. However, those organizations have complex decisions to make to ensure they can keep pace with a rapidly changing market environment and the inexorable march of technology, notes Russ Meyer, Partner in Capco’s US Energy practice.
“Trading & risk management platforms present both a challenge and an opportunity for organizations such as shipping and transportation firms, global commodity traders, production and mining companies, global banks, wholesale energy marketers and asset managers. There is a lot of market change occurring, especially in the power industry, if somewhat less so in oil and gas.
“Organizations have to respond to those changes and ensure they are agile and that their systems and technology conform. That typically leaves them with one of two choices.
“Some might require a new market facing solution for power and renewables trading, as they need these systems to be able to trade, get their pricing, and submit schedules. In those instances we provide solution road-mapping to help them understand a future vision for what their systems should look like.
“Then there are those organizations that already have systems. Their challenge is deciding whether they should upgrade to the latest version or look instead at some of the newer systems out there. We will do an analysis of their options and, once they've chosen a system, we help with the implementation, advising on the best configurations and the business processes, and document those so that they can refer to them. We provide services ranging from process improvement, process automation and analytics & reporting through to training and advisory strategy.”
Russ Meyer
trading & risk management
© Capco 2025, A Wipro Company
Back to Top
NORTH AMERICA
Houston Dallas New York Charlotte Chicago Orlando Toronto
Europe
London Manchester Edinburgh Geneva
Paris
South AMERICA
Sāo Paulo Rio de Janeiro
Middle East & APAC
Bengaluru Pune Singapore
Mature Business
new growth opportunity
Roberta Gabarron
Partner & Brazil Energy Lead
Established in Texas over 25 years ago, Capco’s Energy practice today boasts a strong presence in both the US and Brazil, and is now focused on a new chapter of growth in the UK, Europe, Canada and Asia-Pacific. We spoke with Chris McNeely, Partner and Global Energy Lead, and John Janssen, Managing Partner for Capco Texas, about the Energy practice’s heritage partnering with clients across the energy value chain, plans for expanding the business over the next two years, and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the energy industry.
With a broad focus that spans utilities, retail & wholesale energy, oil & gas, and the midstream market segments as well as trading & risk management and energy transition, Capco’s Energy practice combines deep energy industry business knowledge with digital, consulting, and complex technology implementation and execution expertise.
Growth of the business to date has been almost purely organic, driven by a strong brand and long-standing personal relationships at core flagship clients. Its client base today includes a number of the leading global energy majors as well as long-standing relationships with a broad spectrum of other regional energy companies.
“Today we have over 1,300 employees and dedicated Partners assigned across all six of our energy practice areas, with utilities being the largest, followed closely by oil & gas, trading & risk management, and wholesale & retail,” says Chris. “We have more than 45 clients, some of whom we've been continuously engaged with for almost a quarter of a century – initially partnering with them back in the late 1990s and continuing to this day, working with them across their enterprises on a multitude of different transformative projects during that time.”
John describes the services that Capco provides to energy companies as “small ‘S’ strategy and big ‘E’ execution” focused. “We do not typically do C-suite consulting, but we will do energy business strategy, operating models, road maps, maturity assessments, business process improvement – the small ‘S’ strategy,” he adds.
“If a company decides it wants to enter a new power or gas market, we will work with them on the people, process, and technology related operating model that will need to be put in place to facilitate that market entry. And we have the additional skill and capability to be there with them to implement the people, process, and technology changes to achieve the vision of the operating model.
“That is the big ‘E’ execution. Our clear intent when we engage in that upfront strategy and the ideation phase of a transformative program lifecycle is to remain on board to then carry out the actual transformation.”
“That is increasing overall grid complexity and security risks. While distributed resources offer increased grid flexibility and resilience, the transition towards decentralization and smart grid technologies has magnified the importance of cybersecurity, distribution management, energy balancing and smart technologies, with clients requiring more support to navigate the associated complexities.”
It is this process of industry evolution and disruption that informs not only the Energy practice’s 2025 growth strategy, with a particular focus on trading & risk management and utility transformation, but also its longer-term expansion plans through into 2027. “Diversifying both geographically and across our core client portfolio will be key to driving more broad-based growth, and we are also looking to leverage our global clients across regions outside the Americas to catalyze market entry and drive scale,” says Chris.
In line with this strategy, two new Partners joined the US practice at the end of summer 2024. Based in Houston, Dan Martin is a 30-year consulting veteran specializing in leading successful large-scale digital transformations, enterprise systems integration projects, as well as 24/7 operations of solutions across the oil & gas and power & utilities industries.
Meanwhile, in New York Sal Kutub has joined the team with a focus on the Northeast US. Sal brings almost 20 years of experience in the power and utilities industries, with a proven track record of leading complex business transformation and large-scale programs, from conceptualizing the strategy to executing it worldwide.
Businesses are under increasing pressure to decarbonize and align their business models to reach net zero carbon emissions goals by 2050. This is fueling an energy transition where industry lines are blurring, and new ecosystems and players are emerging. While this transition is moving increasingly towards the electrification of our energy systems, the reality is that the sustained demand growth for energy in developed countries will ensure that traditional fossil fuels will remain a core component of the energy value chain for the foreseeable future.
“The integration of renewable energy is accelerating, which in turn is driving the shift towards decentralized resources and digitization of grid management,” adds John.
John Janssen
Managing Partner for Capco Texas
The integration of renewable energy is accelerating, which in turn is driving the shift towards decentralized resources and digitization of grid management.
Diversifying both geographically and across our core client portfolio will be key to driving more broad-based growth.
The energy sector is still benefiting from high energy
prices and growing demand, especially in developing countries.
Looking ahead into 2025 and beyond, in addition to a continued focus on technology transformation Chris sees clear opportunities for the practice around cybersecurity, data and analytics, emerging technology (not least AI) and cloud – all key themes shaping clients’ agendas.
“While concerns related to inflation, interest rates, geopolitical tensions and evolving regulatory environments exist, the reality is that the energy sector is still benefiting from high energy prices and growing demand, especially in developing countries,” he notes.
“These factors, combined with the increasingly complex nature of evolving energy markets– not least the challenges in meeting demand growth in our energy systems, the opportunities and threats presented by disruptive technologies, and the sustained need for improved efficiency – will collectively continue to drive our clients’ demand for innovation and transformation.”
Meeting these challenges will require a strong combination of deep industry expertise, exceptional technology and data capabilities and transformation delivery excellence. “That is where Capco shines – ensuring our clients are positioned to adapt, evolve, disrupt and flourish,” says Chris.
“We are confident that we are strongly positioned to offer the tailored end-to-end services and solutions they need to solve the complex challenges they face across a broad range of strategic imperatives – from sustainability through to efficiency and technology modernization – and successfully navigate challenging market environments.”
Having grown the legacy US Energy practice over the course of two decades, the past three years have seen a robust expansion in Brazil, says Roberta Gabarron, Partner & Brazil Energy Lead.
“Initially our Energy business in Brazil was focused on leveraging local software engineering resources that we had dedicated to delivering projects primarily to our US energy clients in addition to our work with our local Brazilian clients.
“Among those local clients is Petrobras, one of the five largest global energy majors, and we've provided significant scaled delivery ability to that account. The Brazil team also supports clients in the US at other global energy majors as a nearshore energy advisor, both from a technology and a functional standpoint.
“We have expertise across a dozen different disciplines, spanning program leadership and operational activities support, digital and analytical solutions, regulatory and compliance, integrated operations centre, subsea and well integrity, equipment engineering, and safety, environment and health. Our capability and the size of our footprint in Brazil continues to evolve, and we are now doing significant volumes of work for new clients.”
Growth beyond the Americas
Brazil – Roberta Gabarron
“Initially our Energy business in Brazil was focused on leveraging local software engineering resources that we had dedicated to delivering projects primarily to our US energy clients in addition to our work with our local Brazilian clients.
“Among those local clients is Petrobras, one of the five largest global energy majors, and we've provided significant scaled delivery ability to that account. The Brazil team also supports clients in the US at other global energy majors as a nearshore energy advisor, both from a technology and a functional standpoint.
“We have expertise across a dozen different disciplines, spanning program leadership and operational activities support, digital and analytical solutions, regulatory and compliance, integrated operations centre, subsea and well integrity, equipment engineering, and safety, environment and health. Our capability and the size of our footprint in Brazil continues to evolve, and we are now doing significant volumes of work for new clients.”
Having grown the legacy US Energy practice over the course of two decades, the past three years have seen a robust expansion in Brazil, says Roberta Gabarron, Partner & Brazil Energy Lead.
UK ENERGY – Rob Deakin
“Initially our Energy business in Brazil was focused on leveraging local software engineering resources that we had dedicated to delivering projects primarily to our US energy clients in addition to our work with our local Brazilian clients.
“Among those local clients is Petrobras, one of the five largest global energy majors, and we've provided significant scaled delivery ability to that account. The Brazil team also supports clients in the US at other global energy majors as a nearshore energy advisor, both from a technology and a functional standpoint.
“We have expertise across a dozen different disciplines, spanning program leadership and operational activities support, digital and analytical solutions, regulatory and compliance, integrated operations centre, subsea and well integrity, equipment engineering, and safety, environment and health. Our capability and the size of our footprint in Brazil continues to evolve, and we are now doing significant volumes of work for new clients.”
Building on the US Energy business’ track record of innovation and transformation, Capco’s new UK Energy practice is ideally placed to apply the company’s 25-years of expertise and experience in energy and financial services to resolve energy companies and utilities’ most complex challenges, says Rob Deakin, Partner and Head of UK Energy.
Chris McNeely
Partner & Global Energy Lead
We've been continuously engaged with some clients for almost a quarter of a century, working across their enterprises on a multitude of different transformative projects.
Chris McNeely
Partner & Global Energy Lead
We've been continuously engaged with some clients for almost a quarter of a century, working across their enterprises on a multitude of different transformative projects.
Brazil