Natalie Thompson

Four years into her journey at bp, Natalie Thompson was handed a blank sheet of paper: design a central reliability and maintenance team that truly supports both upstream and downstream operations. What emerged was a radically leaner, more focused organization—one that prioritizes execution over theory, and outcomes over process. In this session, Natalie shares how bp is rethinking asset management by focusing on a few critical capabilities, empowering frontline teams, and finding the balance between standardization and agility in a high-stakes, high-compliance industry. 

• Why doing a few things with excellence every day outperforms broad but shallow compliance with asset management frameworks. 
• Lessons from building a leaner, more effective reliability organization—50% smaller but laser-focused on impact. 
• How over-reliance on rigid processes has stifled technician autonomy and problem-solving—and what bp is doing to bring back critical thinking. 
• How bp is strategically using centers in India and elsewhere to scale capability without scaling cost. 
• How bp is navigating the tension between perfection, standardization, and speed.