Executive leadership team

Joseph Elkhoury

Chief Executive Officer

​Joseph joined KCA Deutag as CEO on 1 July 2019, bringing with him extensive experience in a wide variety of operational and leadership roles in the oilfield services industry. Most notably he spent 21 years with Schlumberger where he held a number of senior positions and had responsibility for several of the company's businesses including Microseismic Services, Production Services, Information Solutions and Global Supply Chain.

Joseph was also previously Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President for Tetra Technologies, Inc, and more recently an Operating Partner, focusing on investment opportunities in the energy technology sector, at Apollo Global Management LLC.

Neil Gilchrist

Chief Financial Officer

Neil joined KCA Deutag as Chief Financial Officer in January 2013 and is responsible for the finance, corporate development, tax and treasury functions.

Neil started his career with Price Waterhouse in 1988 and qualified as a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for Scotland in 1991. He then built up 20 years' financial management experience in the petrochemical industry with the LyondellBasell group including several years in Europe, an assignment in Asia, where he was Director of Finance and Corporate Strategy for its Korean joint venture and the last four years at the headquarters in Houston.

Sarah Walters

Senior Vice President

Sarah has over 25 years of strategic international HR and organisational development experience from the rail, healthcare and oil and gas industries - including ConocoPhillips and Talisman Energy, where she held senior HR leadership positions across Europe, South America, USA and Canada.

She joined KCA Deutag in March 2022 from Cenovus Energy, where she held the position of Executive Vice-President Corporate Services and holds a Master of Science Degree in Strategic Human Resource Management & Organisational Development.

Sarah is responsible for leading the HR, IT, communications and logistics functions – strategically and operationally.

Alaina Ramsay

General Counsel

Alaina joined the Group as General Counsel on 1st November 2022. She has over 20 years of commercial and corporate legal experience, having held numerous senior roles with various drilling and oilfield service providers. This includes Transocean, an international drilling contractor and most recently in the Middle East with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) where she was General Counsel for ADNOC Drilling and helped get the company listed in Abu Dhabi.

Simon Drew

President

Simon joined KCA Deutag as a Drilling Engineer in 1996, working initially on a number of operational and rig design projects in the UK, Caspian and Sakhalin. During this time Simon gained an MSc in Drilling Engineering from The Robert Gordon University and became a chartered engineer.

In 2004 Simon progressed into general management, spending four years in Houston where he became VP-US and in 2009 was promoted to General Manager for KCA Deutag's fleet of Mobile Offshore Drilling Units, responsible for operations in Mexico, West Africa and the Far East. In 2012 he was appointed Senior Vice President of Rig Design Services, responsible for the overall management of the engineering division. Simon was appointed President of Land in 2015.

Ole Maier

President

Ole began his oil and gas career with Transocean, before joining Deutag Norge Drilling AS and then Odfjell Drilling where he worked for approximately 18 years in various operational and increasingly more senior roles in both Norway and the UK.

Before joining KCA Deutag in June 2020, Ole was Executive Vice President for Odfjell Drilling's Platform Drilling Operations.

Thorbjørn Anhøj

Interim Group Head of HSE and Operational Integrity

Thorbjørn joined KCA Deutag as Country Manager for Norway in April 2021, and in November 2023, he became our interim Group Head of HSE and Operational Integrity.

With a Bachelor of Engineering degree and an MBA from Henley Business School, Thorbjørn has over 28 years of experience in the drilling industry and has held various positions with companies such as Equinor, ExxonMobil, Maersk, Awilco, and Orsted.

In his role, Thorbjørn is responsible for overseeing the health, safety, security, environment, sustainability, quality, and operations support functions of the business.

Gordon Ronaldson, MBE

Senior Vice President

A Chartered Engineer and a Chartered Environmentalist, Gordon moved into the energy industry in 2002 following 12 years as a Royal Navy officer and has since gained extensive operator and service-side experience.

Gordon joined KCA Deutag as Kenera SVP in August 2022. His previous roles include CEO of Score Group and senior positions with Shell, Talisman Energy and Global Energy Group. He also led Wood's business across Russia/Caspian; Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf region.

In addition to being an energy industry professional, Gordon has also been involved in a number of industrial sectors including water, wind, solar, nuclear, aerospace, defence and the broader energy transition.

Omar Moussa

Vice President

Since earning a degree in mechanical engineering at American University in Beirut, Omar Moussa has gone on to have decades of experience in the upstream oil and gas industry.

Throughout 30 years with Schlumberger, Omar held a variety of senior positions in operations, engineering and management across all product lines, working across the Middle East, North Africa, the USA and the Far East. He served as VP of Land Rigs in Eastern Hemisphere and, later, as VP Business Development for Cameron Equipment and Services in the Middle East before joining KCA Deutag in 2021.

Omar is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and now serves as Vice President, Services for Kenera.