Niels Phaf – Managing Partner
Niels Phaf was a McKinsey & Company Partner in the Houston Office where he improved the performance of many family owned and publically traded oil and gas companies. He has deep expertise in business transformation, procurement, supply chain transformation, growth and portfolio strategy, and developing/leading high-performing teams. Internal to McKinsey he founded the Global Capital Oil and Gas Service Line in 2011, a $175M revenue business with 40% year-on-year growth. Niels was also a core member of the Oil and Gas Practice leadership
Niels drove sustainable improvements to the bottom-lines through end-to-end business transformations. To mention a few examples: he delivered $500 million EBITDA performance improvement in 12 months with a North American unconventional shale business; he delivered a 40% production growth and 20% lifting cost reduction for the private owner of an Oil and Gas company. He also developed and helped to implement more than 15 successful growth and portfolio strategies across a broader range of clients and industries
Before joining McKinsey, Niels worked for Schlumberger, Norway, as a trainee observer on the North Sea, responsible for onboard seismic data collection
Niels has earned an MBA from INSEAD in Singapore & France, and an MSc Cum Laude in Mining & Petroleum Engineering and Geophysics from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
He is fluent in Dutch and English, has lived in the Netherlands, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Singapore, and France. His hobbies include cooking, running, and history
Ed Schneider – Partner
Ed Schneider was with McKinsey and Company for 10 years, focusing on North America onshore E&P. Most recently he was a VP with McKinsey’s Energy Insights where he led both the Houston location and the Due Diligence service line globally. He was one of three critical leaders who grew Energy Insights from less than 10 to more than 65 specialists. In 3 years he founded the Houston location, growing it to a staff of 20; and grew the global Diligence service line by 8x in revenues to over 25 consultants across Houston, London, Singapore, and Dubai. Prior, he was an Associate Principle serving upstream and oilfield service clients on topics relating to North America onshore oil and gas (e.g., basin growth strategies, shale entry strategies, organization structure, decision rights, procurement/contracting). Throughout his McKinsey career he was a thought leader in North America onshore. He drove McKinsey’s market perspectives and analytics including the NA Upstream model, sub-basin analytics / profiles, and operator performance benchmarks.
Ed started with Solvay Polymers as a production engineer in Deer Park, TX. He was rapidly promoted to Production Manager within Polypropylene where he helped set new production records with a 20 year old asset and later turned around a new production line that had been plagued with operational issues since start-up. His business was acquired by BP in 2002
Ed holds a B.E. of Chemical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, a Masters of Engineering Management from Northwestern University, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management