In just three years, industry entrepreneur Steven Gray has built a subsea company to rival most.
Rovop, which posted £3.2million in turnover in 2012, now employs 130 staff, operates in nearly every international energy base and is on track to record £25million in turnover for this financial year.
It’s that kind of scorecard which saw him named Ernst & Young’s entrepreneur of the year for international business growth.
But for Steven it all began in his family’s “mom and pop” 99p stores where he learned the peaks and troughs of running a business.
He later spent seven years studying and qualifying in law to spend just eight weeks practising his craft before transitioning into banking.
At 27-years-old he found himself working in Manhattan managing more than $1billion worth of transactions.
The native Scot, who then went on to carve out a career in private equity, later returned to Aberdeen where he plucked up the courage to leave his corner office and comfortable salary to strike out on his own.
Energy Voice sat down with the managing director fresh off his October win and at the start of the oil price slide to discuss his journey to the top.
Browse the clips to watch the highlights or view the full interview below.
Part One: Steven discusses why he doesn’t run ROVOP as a family business, what the responsibility of $1billion feels like and lessons learned from the banking sector’s demise.
Part Two: Steven discusses why he left his corner office, ignoring the nay-sayers and what learning to play the bagpipes taught him about taking risks.
Part Three: Steven discusses what attracted him to the subsea industry, how an ignored windfarm sector gave his firm the break it needed and the firm’s current financial outlook.
Part Four: Steven discusses the subsea industry’s challenges, including cost inflation, shrinking Capex budgets and reduced outlooks. He also discusses his confidence in the North Sea, the emerging decommissioning sector and why an international outlook is critical to its success amid trying times.
Watch Oil & Gas UK chief executive Malcolm Webb’s Journey here.
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