Katoni Engineering strengthen delivery with appointment of Stuart Gray as Head of Engineering Delivery

We're delighted to welcome Stuart Gray to Katoni as our new Head of Engineering Delivery. Stuart joins us with over 20 years of North Sea experience in a career spent almost entirely as the Operator - he's been the client and he knows what Operators need from their engineering partners because for two decades, he's been the one needing it.

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We sat down with Stuart in his first week to talk about the road that led him here, the lessons that shaped him, and his aspirations for delivery at Katoni.

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Wed to the Industry

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It wasn’t a career that started by accident, but it certainly wasn’t planned.

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"I came offshore 23 years ago to make some money, get ready to get married, and maybe head back offshore again after my survival training,"

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Twenty-three years later, he finds himself in a long-term relationship with the industry.

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Stuart started offshore as a steward before completing an operations apprenticeship through OPTIO with Wood, where he earned his NVQs in operations and control room operations. From there he worked his way up: Operator control room Operator, area authority, standing in as team lead, across Operators including Talisman and BG Group.

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Around 2012 he got his chance to come onshore as a shutdown and operations focal point and steadily progressed through the ranks. First shutdown ops rep, then shutdown coordinator, then ops manager, before moving to Shell as part of the BG-Shell merger, where he spent a year as Operations Integrity Lead for the UK and Ireland. A move to Chrysaor followed, in a role that evolved through merger into Harbour Energy, where he spent around six years flipping between shutdown and modifications before eventually moving into his most recent role as Shutdown Manager at Spirit Energy

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From client to colleague

For Stuart, joining Katoni was no mere leap into the unknown. "My first introduction was back during the early days," he says. "I had conversations with John MacLean at the very beginning, and we did some small pieces of work together."

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What kept bringing him back and caught his eye, as a client, was the quality of the work. "It was the attention to detail," he says.

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"The ability to deliver, the teams they had working for them, the ability to consistently produce good work to a high standard. That's what always led me toward using Katoni for engineering."

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So when the role came up, it was a chance to cross over to a business he already knew and rated. Part of that fit, however, was the role itself. It offered Stuart something he'd not had before: the chance to bring everything he'd learned as an Operator into the EPC world.

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"The role allows me to take an Operator's view into the engineering world," he explains. "To put myself in the position of… what would I want to see? How would I want to see it? How would I look at it?"

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The other part of it was simply down to timing. After 23 years working his way up through operations, shutdowns and modifications, Stuart told us:

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"It was the right role, at the right time, at the right stage of my career."

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You can be proud of a project that went wrong too!

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Eager to find out more about Stuart’s background, we asked him about the project he's most proud of - but his answer wasn’t the typical hero story you'd expect to hear. Instead, Stuart nominated a Lomond flotel campaign back in 2014 - a significant undertaking that, in his own words, didn't go well.

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"There were lots of factors around it.. But it's probably one of the things that shaped my whole career in terms of honesty, getting bad news out early, and being able to deal with it."

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Stuart draws his workplace philosophy from that experience and has carried it with him ever since: surface the problem early.

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“It taught me to never let bad news travel slowly. When it's held back, it lands on you at the worst possible moment. Raise it early, and people jump on board to help close the gap. It wasn't a success as such - but it shaped how I think about preparation and delivery."

As Gary Barlow once said… ‘Never forget where you’re coming from’

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Stuart is quick to credit the people who shaped him along the way - in particular a mentor from his BG days, Paul Jackson. "A fantastic person, a great manager," Stuart says. "Very clear on honesty and support. You back your team, you support them, you protect them - and you have those difficult conversations when you need to."

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It's a set of values Stuart carries into his own leadership today.

Two rules: High standards, and enjoy it

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Stuart's approach to work comes down to a single sentence:

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"Deliver high standards and enjoy your work. If you can't do that, then there's a problem."

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And where some of the industry see complexity, Stuart sees something more hopeful. "Everybody believes everything's complicated… and it's not," he says. "Everything is fixable. It's just a case of whether you've got the time, the effort, and the want to do it."

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It's an outlook he traces directly back to his late father.

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"Work hard, think about things, take your time - you'll find the result."

Putting ourselves in the Operator’s shoes

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That Operator's-eye view is what Stuart brings to Katoni's clients. He knows what good delivery feels like from the receiving end - and for him, it starts with honesty.

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"There's sometimes a feeling that companies will tell you they can do anything," he says.

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"What I always valued was the honest conversation - yes, we can do this, but here's the time, the people, the effort, the cost. That honesty up front is critical."

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The rest, he says, is about visibility: a clear understanding of scope readiness, where costs sit, and giving clients the right information in the format they want, as often as they want it.

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Where Stuart’s compass is pointed

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Stuart is straightforward when it comes to his first priority: listen before you change anything. "Nothing gets shaped in a week or a month - it takes time, but his direction is clear. He wants to sharpen how Katoni plans and delivers - closing gaps, strengthening planning and planning data, and building on the firm's reputation toward best-in-class delivery.

"It's about leveraging the relationships and the environment here, and helping Katoni become best-in-class in how we deliver for our clients."

Welcome to the team, Stuart.

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