Thread regarding Cenovus Energy layoffs

The VP of Convential (RE) had to go. She was a board hire and it showed. The Director (NK) was an amazing person to work for, a true leader who everyone wanted to support and achieve great things for! The fact that our new SVP (Johnson) didn’t see that is a shame! “Johnson” brings a renewed challenge. He elicits a sense of knowing the deep basin and what our strategy should be. However early indicators suggest he is as clueless as his predecessors and there have been many! If “Johnson” takes the time to truly understand these assets, he has a chance. If he thinks “flattening the top” and making deep cuts is the answer, he’s setting himself up for failure! He’s already promoted one of the most useless people in the organization who does nothing other than book meaningless and ineffective meetings! He wants to “pivot” a natural gas focused asset to oil at a time when oil is at a 4 year low and gas is at a multi-year high! WTF? Is that because he knows oil or because he doesn’t know gas? Interesting question. “Johnson” sure seems to have a lot of confidence in himself, but I’m not sold quite yet! I have hope, but his decisions over the next month will be important and meaningful as to whether or not he has success transforming this business unit. All I can say is that you get what you pay for “Johnson”. Do you want a Honda Civic or do you want a Land Rover Defender? Remember that when you choose the staff you need to to turn this thing around! You’ve made some good moves, removing task masters and silo keepers! I just hope you make the right moves going forward and keep the people who truly know these assets and who can deliver the results you so desperately need!

@aj+1jr0dycsa in another post is 100% correct that accountants like MN should not run oil companies. They should sidetrack him by putting him in charge of Ethanol. After all, he did his MBA thesis on biofuels. Wonder if he followed Carley’s lead and plagiarized it?

HR is the funniest group with directors and senior managers with not even a single direct report. Literally no people under them. They should lead by example but they’re actually the worst offenders. And the CLT just looks the other way.

A quick guideline for the ELT. If you’re a leader with 5 or fewer direct reports you are redundant.

Shuffling the deck at the highest levels. An endless shell-game of where the cancer lives.

There are other bullies around, beyond him and certainly a witch on the broom stick.

I wonder how long it'll take for things to trickle down

MN has now been handed yet another newly created role, and unfortunately, it looks like another team at CVE is about to be destroyed under his direction. I genuinely feel for that group.

His track record speaks for itself...poor decisions on both the work and staffing fronts. Let’s not forget, he was responsible for hiring the “popular”directors who are thankfully not with Cenovus anymore. One was widely known to be a bully (RB) , the other had a reputation as an office peacocker (RC). Neither had any meaningful understanding of the business, yet both brought even more people who knew even less but got promoted.

This entire group has cost the company millions of dollars, yet many of them, including MN, remain in place. It’s baffling how this continues to be overlooked. One can only hope that the next round of layoffs addresses this lingering issue.

@fn+1jqwfgey0 Nothing's been announced, but wouldn't you put on your best outfit before a first date?

Are the Cenovus conventional assets being sold?

Whats the new role for MN?

Would love to see the folks designing the KPIs actually try hitting one out here.

Some folks are still busy climbing ladders, even if the building’s on fire. Gotta admire the commitment, I guess.

TR should have got the axe. What an a-s kissing yes man

Check out MN’s work history on LinkedIn …

Business Development Team Lead @ HLU - Facility produces one product which is synthetic crude oil. Exciting.

Business Optimization Manager - “feedstock selection to diesel operating condition”. Really? In Lloydminster connected to one pipeline you processed Lloyd Heavy Oil.

Manager Commercial & Development (Downstream Pipelines / Terminals) - Vague

Manager Project Eng & Commercial Development - The vague continues.

Chief Commercial Officer HMGP - It doesn’t get much clearer.

Chief Operating Officer HMGP - Example of promotion to level of incompetence.

VP Conventional Operations - Totally outside the level of expertise without an engineering background.

You lost me at “a well known leader from Husky”! Husky brought over marginal conventional assets at best, so to largely give them the reigns was a huge mistake.

Appreciate the sarcasm about MN!!

The guy needs to go! He has made some awful decisions about the business and he brought some sh...y people who are still with Cenovus.

MN is a well known leader from Husky. He has a good reputation of being a supportive leader and overall personable individual.

Think Jesus with less hair.

What makes MN famous?

BYE BYE RC…. Already feeling sorry for the next company who is gonna fall for your lies and the trashy girls you will be hiring ….

When is IT’s turn for top tier releases?

It looks like everyone except one director under MN was let go in Conventional.

It doesn’t even matter what they do to upstream to try and save money. They’re losing so much money on downstream every quarter that nothing will make a difference until that unholy mess is dealt with. The rest of it is all window dressing. Our Husky CEO bet the companies future on downstream and he bet wrong, very wrong. He should be replaced.

Terrible leaders are beyond just Conventional, company wide problem!

Just got hired recently - why is conventional getting gutted?

Bye bye RC

Sadly, only the competent people were laid off. The dead weight is still around us. I can name a few.

Not enough.....they need to go deeper.... and please DO NOT transfer useless leaders who created a mess in conventional, to different roles. What a shame. Such a shame.