Leaders are defined by their ability to build solid teams that perform efficiently through proper guidance and molding consensus, to unify and accomplish remarkable feats together. Implementing a similar philosophy, Vineeta Maguire, the Vice President (VP) of Supply Management Services at Ovintiv Canada ULC, leads a multidisciplinary and cross-border team specializing in supply chain and operations.
Vineeta sees the word influential in the context of bringing teams together to identify new solutions. Cross-functional teams across Ovintiv progress ideas by aligning with internal and external experts and understanding the business value in uncovering technical and commercial synergies that drive operational excellence. Ovintiv is powered by its unique innovation, teamwork, and disciplined culture. It relentlessly innovates to drive efficiency in every part of its business. Ultimately, it is this teamwork of brilliant innovators and leaders across Ovintiv that work together to drive results.
Enhancing the Current Role
Vineeta is a chemical engineer, graduating with a degree in engineering from the University of British Columbia and then earning a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Calgary. In her 30-plus-year career and 17 years with Ovintiv, Vineeta has predominately held operational and technical leadership positions.
She has combined and applied this experience over the last seven years to her current supply chain role. She has a background in reservoir, production, and operations engineering. Her prior role at Ovintiv was VP Operations Services, overseeing the Canadian Drilling, Completions, Construction, Facilities, EH&S (Environmental, Health & Safety), Stakeholder, and Regulatory functions.
Developing as an Engineer and Leader
Over the last three decades, the energy industry has provided challenges and opportunities, allowing Vineeta to develop as an engineer and leader. Vineeta’s work was focused on highly technical, engineering-centric roles, leading asset development and infrastructure development teams.
In taking on her role in Supply Management, her challenge was to increase the integration between the operational teams and the supply chain experts. This highly integrated commercial approach is now a foundational element of Ovintiv’s performance culture that is both differentiating and a source of competitive advantage.
In Vineeta’s current role, she leads a centralized team of truly exceptional commercial and technical supply chain professionals. She has worked closely with this cross-border, cross-functional team to build strong relationships with each asset across Ovintiv as the entire organization continues to find strategic and innovative ways to deliver results.
Providing Safe, Reliable, and Affordable Energy
Ovintiv is one of the largest producers of oil, condensate, natural gas, and natural gas liquids in North America. Its purpose is simple and impactful: its products fuel the world—it makes modern life possible. Ovintiv focuses on innovation and continuous improvement to provide safe, reliable, and affordable energy, supporting better education, healthcare, and equality of opportunities. Its team is united by a commitment to drive progress and improve lives with respect and responsibility, not just in the communities where they operate, but for everyone.
Building Flexible and Sustainable Business Solutions
Ovintiv’s Supply Chain team works closely with all aspects of the business to build technical and commercial synergies, drive sustainable operations, and deliver financial results. Technological improvements – linked to innovative contracting strategies – are measured with an expanded focus on business analytics to ensure an agile response to challenges. Ovintiv has improved transparency with its internal teams and external partners to build these flexible and sustainable business solutions. The implementation of wet sand in our operations is just one example of how we have lead change in industry implementing this approach.
The last two years have been a period of unprecedented disruption in global supply chains. Vineeta’s team’s increasing expertise on business analytics has elevated the understanding of each link in the supply chain and where the risks and opportunities lie, impacting Ovintiv’s procurement planning, price negotiations, and inventory decisions. Examples of Ovintiv sourcing analysts diving deeper into the upstream supply chains of their vendors has proven critical in timely risk management of mitigating logistical delays and supply shortages by being part of the solution. In some cases, Ovintiv has sourced or supplied the material to the vendor and utilized Ovintiv project management skills to execute the project. This increased transparency and understanding of the global supply chain fundamentals has also proven invaluable in managing critical inventory levels by anticipating supply constraints.
Ovintiv also works with all stakeholders to drive sustainable innovation—faster and smarter—into the organization to execute and deliver effective results. Ultimately, the depth of the integration and alignment across all teams drives Ovintiv’s success in a way that can be measured and maintained.
Developing Tools to Improve Efficiency
Modern oil and gas exploration and development is a very high-tech industry—the management and optimization of the supply chain are no different. Ovintiv has been progressing its digital transformation over the last several years—even helping to develop tools to improve its efficiency.
For example, Ovintiv uses algorithms to help it sort and compare pricing on hundreds of SKUs—what once took days or weeks can now be done literally in minutes. Ovintiv has also leveraged technology in automating the process of matching rates submitted in an invoice to those in the contract. A simple but very effective innovation. Technology is key to Ovintiv’s advancement and sharing its learnings with other teams across its operations allows it to perform most efficiently.
Driven by Agility and Innovation
Ovintiv adheres to the core and foundational values that function as its inner compass and drive its culture. Its core values of agility and innovation guide and drive its actions. Its foundational values of integrity, safety, sustainability, trust, and respect guide its behaviors and defines what it expects of itself and others in the workplace. Overall, these values impact how Ovintiv executes its strategy, delivers on its objectives, and underpins its culture.
Linking Technical and Commercial Expertise
Vineeta advises aspiring entrepreneurs: “Understand the business you work in better than anyone else; that is how opportunities for optimization are identified and implemented. Link technical and commercial expertise in every contract, and ensure you understand the commercial terms of every deal and how they align to operations—this will ultimately allow you to unlock value.”
“Align yourself with vendors and partners that drive operational excellence with innovation, transparency, and business analytics to measure success. Work with companies with similar values in the environment, social, and governance (ESG) space, where influencing change is critical in building a sustainable energy industry,” Vineeta concludes.
