Lewis Senior is the CEO and co-founder of Equilibria, a coaching and consultancy company empowering individuals, teams, and businesses across multiple sectors to realise potential and achieve their desired results. His career began working offshore in the mid-seventies before transitioning his skills to support the growth of others.
“In the energy industry, it’s vital that we stay curious, stay adaptable, and stay people-focused.”
Growing up in Leeds in the 1960s, I never envisioned that my career would take such a varied and rewarding path.
I remember my first experience like it was yesterday. It was 1974, where after studying business in London, I found myself visiting a floating platform for a major scaffolding project. In that moment, I instantly fell in love with offshore life.
When I returned from the trip to Aberdeen, I immediately secured an interview with a drilling contractor. I was hired on the spot as a roustabout, kicking off my oilfield career.
After a few years in the North Sea, I joined a company building a state-of-the-art, dynamically positioned drillship, capable of operating in offshore basins around the world. Where most brought strong hands-on technical skills, I quickly realised my strengths lay not in working with machinery, but with and leading people.
This marked the start of a change in my career. Shaped by frontline operational experience spanning Africa to Southeast Asia, I served in various roles. Primarily, I worked as an Offshore Installation Manager (OIM), until in 1996 when I was appointed HSE Manager for what would become the world’s largest drilling contractor. That shift expanded my focus and deepened my commitment to people and performance.
During my six years in the HSE role, the company expanded rapidly through a series of mergers and acquisitions. While we had once been recognised for a culture of safety excellence, we experienced a devastating shift, culminating in seven fatalities within the first few months of 2002.
This was a real turning point for me. I became determined to help create a coaching and development platform grounded in the understanding of personality diversity and its influence on safety culture and outcomes. In 2004, together with three co-founders, we launched Equilibria — a coaching organisation that has since made a meaningful impact on individuals, teams, and workplaces around the world. Working with clients to build a culture of operational excellence always fills me with pride and gratitude. It’s a pleasure to witness their transformation and see them achieve their goals; it reinforces why we do what we do.
The industry is evolving rapidly, with growing emphasis on sustainability, technology, and alternative energy sources. That means technical expertise is still important, but the ability to work well with others, to communicate effectively across cultures and disciplines, and to lead with intention has never been more critical. No matter how advanced the tools or how ambitious the goals, it’s still the people who make the difference.
My encouragement to anyone starting out is to invest in understanding yourself and others. The better you can connect, collaborate, and lead, the more meaningful — and impactful — your journey will be.
For more information on Equilibria visit: https://www.equilibria.com/
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