Mike Smith

Mike, one of Thism’s founding directors, started his career as an electrical engineer in the Royal Navy. He then moved into the energy industry, working for Shell UK for nine years and later for Atlantic Richfield, LASMO and Burlington Resources. Mike’s role prior to founding Thism was International Projects and Engineering Director. In addition to knowledge built on UK-based experience, Mike has a great deal of international expertise gained from working and living overseas. His speciality remains the oil and gas industry, where he combines his ‘grounded’ project and operational know-how with expertise in general business and people management.

 

• Project & Operational consultancy, including Project Management and Operational Management together with the business systems and processes they require. Mike has been a senior manager within ground-breaking projects, both leading and being a key part of the design, installation, commissioning and operations phases of significant hydrocarbon processing plants in the UK and China. Additionally, he has managed the building of processing plants in Algeria and Pakistan and established their operations departments, which included partner interfacing and government relations. His responsibilities there, in addition to cost and schedule accountability, included major contract awards and their management, establishing the project and operations teams, recruiting and training in-country personnel and transitioning localisation programmes.
• Management consultancy, including organisational development and change, Gated Decision Processes, dispute arbitration and resolution. 
• Original thinking – whether he’s introducing an ‘industry first’ or mentoring a managing director, Mike prides himself on linking practicality with the business needs and will consistently ‘challenge the norm’. Mike is enthusiastic in stimulating new ideas, setting tough targets, providing different ways of looking at issues and recognising otherwise overlooked opportunities.