Paal Kibsgaard (born April 1967) is a Norwegian petroleum engineer and businessman; the former chairman and CEO of

Schlumberger Schlumberger (), doing business as SLB, is a global multinational oilfield services company. Founded in France in 1926, the company is now incorporated as Schlumberger NV in Willemstad, Curaçao, with principal executive offices in Houston ...

, the world's largest oilfield services company.

Early life

He was born in

Ålesund Ålesund () is a List of towns and cities in Norway, town in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The town is the administrative centre of Ålesund Municipality. The centre of the town of Ålesund lies on the islands of Hessa, Aspøya, Ålesund, Asp� ...

, Norway in April 1967.

Education

He qualified as a petroleum engineer with a master's degree from the

Norwegian Institute of Technology The Norwegian Institute of Technology ( Norwegian: ''Norges tekniske høgskole'', NTH) was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 58 years, after which it was ...

in 1991.

Career

Kibsgaard started his career with

ExxonMobil Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the Successors of Standard Oil, largest direct s ...

in 1992, and joined Schlumberger in 1997. He became its CEO in August 2011, succeeding Andrew Gould, who retired as chairman and CEO. He was replaced by Olivier Le Peuch in August 2019. Under his leadership, the company laid off approximately 70,000 employees in less than three years. He continued to receive $2 million annual salary from the company for unspecified services and for agreeing not to work for a rival company. In 2017, Kibsgaard received $20.8 million in reported pay, which was a 12 percent increase from the previous year. Kibsgaard retired from Schlumberger in August 2019, and was succeeded as CEO by Olivier Le Peuch, and as chairman by Mark G. Papa. In 2019, Kibsgaard was hired by Katerra as its COO. He had been serving the company as a board of director since 2016. In June 2020, He became the CEO, succeeding Michael Marks. It was reported that his appointment came with several hundred million in new financing, which Katerra secured from

SoftBank Vision Fund The SoftBank Vision Fund is a venture capital fund founded in 2017. It is managed by SoftBank Investment Advisers, a subsidiary of the SoftBank Group. With over $100 billion in capital, it is the world's largest technology-focused investment ...

Personal life

In 2004, he married Fadila Kibsgaard, who is a medical doctor from Algeria. They had twin girls in 2008.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kibsgaard, Paal 1967 births Living people Norwegian chief executives Norwegian chairpersons of corporations Norwegian Institute of Technology alumni Norwegian businesspeople in the oil industry People from Ålesund Norwegian engineers Schlumberger people