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Ragnhild Katteland Vice President Subsea and |
What has been your professional experience in Nexans?
I started as a HV cable accessory engineer in a technical and R&D department in 1993, in what at that time was Alcatel. The cable business was split out of Alcatel in 2000 and be-came what today is Nexans. During all these years I have been working for the same compa-ny, but in very different positions in technical, sales & marketing, project management, purchasing and general management departments. As you might understand, Nexans is of-fering great and attractive job opportunities for our employees and is a very interesting place to work.
What do your customers value about Nexans when they award their projects to you?
What we would like to convey to our customers is our strong and solid technical and opera-tional excellence. Our long history and solid track record are proof of our reliability. For customers operating in environments where this is a decisive factor, I think Nexans is per-ceived as a good partner. Also, being a turnkey provider, we are taking care of the entire value chain, from engineering and manufacturing to installation and protection of cables and in this way securing the project and minimizing risks for customers. Excellence in pro-ject execution is another important factor highly valued by our customers.
How do you see the subsea market in the next five years?
The Oil & Gas market has undergone major changes in the last five years, and more changes are still to come, affecting all players and changing the rules of the game to certain extent. I believe the background conditions for the industry have somewhat changed, and the strong focus on costs and efficiency combined with increasingly important environmental requirements has created a new business model and way of working. Also, from a more macroeconomic viewpoint there may be several factors bringing uncertainty to the outlook like the US-China trade war effect on the global economy, US-Iran sanctions, geopolitical concerns in the Middle East, new tax regulations, shale production volumes, outages etc.
However, after the downturn, we now believe the market is picking up, and although slow-ly, we clearly see signs of improvement and willingness to invest. As we have discussed with the TUBACEX management in many occasions, we still believe the Oil & Gas market will re-cover and grow, but under new regimes and different conditions from what we knew be-fore.
As a successful Manager, do you have any suggestions to promote more women to the first level in Oil & Gas industry organizations?
There are a lot of highly skilled and talented women out there, well capable of taking up first level positions in Oil & Gas as well as in other industries. Being a woman in a manageri-al position in Nexans has not been a problem for me and I appreciate the actions taken by my employer to promote women throughout our company, amongst other things by our quite recently established «Women in Nexans» program. A program designed to promote women and encourage professional equality. I, of course, acknowledge the challenges re-lated to gender issues women all over the world might face in their professional life and I strongly support initiatives and actions taken to create a more balanced work life for both women and men.
What is your opinion about the Tubacex Group?
It is vital for Nexans to have reliable, flexible and solution-oriented partners and suppliers, and we see TUBACEX as a strategic important supplier for Nexans to be able to continue be-ing a major player within the field of steel tube umbilicals and power umbilicals. TUBACEX has shown a positive attitude and the willingness to support Nexans in a changing market environment and this is highly appreciated. I trust we will continue to grow our relationship in the years to come – to the success of both companies.