Cees Hoedemakers

Cees Hoedemakers is a Master in Mechanical Engineering of the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands. After working with Shell in Petroleum Engineering he embarked on a career as a Drilling Engineering consultant for a variety of Oil & Gas Exploration and Production operators including Shell, BP and Total.

As such he has frequently been amazed by the way companies in the industry are being "people-managed". By its inherent Anglo-American signature, a lot of emphasis is placed on Shareholders value. As a consequence HR strategy is short term and no attention is paid to retention of knowledge in the various upstream disciplines e.g. Geology, Engineering and Construction. Only thanks to the relatively high profitability, this strategy can be maintained to the detriment of the employees and ultimately to the detriment of the companies.