Brij Hall-Potnis

Learn, Engage, Accelerate, and Disrupt organizations, industries, and the world. 

The fundamental business skills and innovation mindset needed to successfully navigate and implement real change.

Transform knowledge into impact.

Yearlong flagship business program

Activities and societies: Pathfinders Cohort

Supervising, problem solving, and innovating operations for Cache Energy that has developed an ultra-long duration [inter-seasonal to annual timeframe] energy storage technology. The non-hazardous, non-flammable and non-explosive, solid storage material can be safely stored and transported at atmospheric temperatures and pressure with zero energy loss over time and is not reliant on critical minerals and their related supply-chain issues.

Help move the needle forward for the energy transition by working with a dedicated and motivated team implementing Cache's solution which is approximately 100x cheaper than Li-ion batteries, 10x cheaper than thermal storage, 5x cheaper than hydrogen, and can be utilized for electricity generation or to supply process heat/steam to industries.

Advising geothermal developers [Enhanced and Advanced Geothermal Systems] on drilling- and optimization-specific knowledge areas to accelerate deployment and improve their odds of success.

The overwhelming majority of the CapEx of geothermal development is comprised of drilling costs, the optimization of which is paramount to the success of any such venture.

Lead the execution of programs, including the Aerospace Innovation Hub/Campus, the U.S. Department of Energy Energyshed Project, Port of Alaska’s Defense Community Infrastructure Project, and Equipment Installation and Techno-Economic Analysis for Peter Pan Seafoods. In addition to ensuring program objectives and deliverable are met, major responsibilities include managing, supporting, and aligning internal teams, board members, and project managers from disparate organizations.

Team up with government, industry partners, and startups to deploy $1 billion in technical projects in Alaska by the year 2030. Collaborate with founders and CEOs of cutting-edge tech startups in renewables, aviation, and space. Influence and manage expectations of high power and high interest stakeholders by prioritizing projects using a strategic and finely refined, multi-variate, decision-making framework.

Intimately involved in building and nurturing strong relationships, formation of business models, award and budget negotiations, procurement, and stakeholder and vendor management.

Solve for operational risks and dependencies by precise assessments, analyzing tradeoffs, mapping resources to organizational impactful goals, and pre-empting disruptions to schedules and deliverables.

Influence startup vendors’ roadmaps to achieve the best outcomes for projects by co-developing augmented reality digital twining and cloud microgrid marketplace platforms.

Worked alongside the CEO, with focus on business organization and programmatic function. Established company policies and procedures for IT/Cyber security, knowledge-, financial-, and human capital-management. Championed initiatives that enabled smooth transitions for  organizational-level change.

Interviewed internal teams to gather departmental requirements, crafted tailored products to facilitate adoption of change, and drove performance and achieved business results. 

Presented weekly projects updates to leadership simplifying complexity and influencing actions.

Operated at all altitudes within the organization, from scheduling executive reviews to planning sprints to ensuring contractors get paid on time.

Advised leadership by deploying my software products / reinforcement machine learning algorithms and identified compelling cost reductions; for one field/location these amounted to an average savings of 26% of operational cost or $11 million over a three year period. 

Data mining of best practices and quantitative contrasting of tools/services/methods to execute with the optimum balance between cost and quality. 

Completed a comprehensive 1-D Geomechanical / Wellbore Stability Study for an entire offshore field. Greatly reduced risk by parsing critical project parameters. 

Led program-wide root-cause assessments for non-productive time. Presented findings to leadership and technical teams, and recommended solutions.

Scoped, integrated, and scaled my software solution suite to address customer’s operational objectives, of pushing the boundaries in Extended Reach Drilling [ERD], and implemented in a complex ecosystem. Added new product features to meet stakeholders’ requests and expectations, and prioritized value while optimizing risk.

Identified technical limits, to maximum operational efficiencies, and created execution roadmaps to overcome them. Recommended redesign of tools and automation technologies; an example of such prescriptive guidance was a 54% reduction in operational costs.

Process-critical role in the successful implementation of a first-of-its-kind hardware tool. Discovered and created a workaround for a design problem, that the vendor had failed to identify and was unable to resolve, which otherwise would have compromised success, safety, and future utilization.

Systematically flagged suboptimal practices and products and quantified their impact. Elevated the understanding of all team members by presenting digestible data.

Bootstrapped an innovative oil and gas / geothermal reinforcement machine learning software suite through the entire product development lifecycle. Pitched the product suite to secure high-visibility, cross-functional contracts with two major oil companies.

Automated the data ingestion, transformation, and analysis workflows to assure data quality, consistency, and scalability.

Designed unique and insightful data visualization dashboards to provide prescriptive guidance, correlate complex relationships and track key performance metrics to enable aggressive continuous improvement.

Subject Matter Expert in upstream engineering planning. Directed implementation teams to execute high-profile projects on schedule successfully and consistently.

Balanced-matrix, rolling-wave project management. Accustomed to rigid milestones and phase gates, and frequent schedule compressions. 

Adapted to changing project requirements and priorities, including flexibility in handling unexpected challenges in a dynamic environment.

High level of proficiency in numerous technical and cloud computing platforms to achieve project objectives.

Planned and implemented engineering and technical products / solutions as a Subject Matter Expert and directed field crews during deployment.

Shared and reinforced solid understanding of technical aspects of projects with team members to align everyone with the specific requirements for deliverable.

Built, managed, and scaled a database project, including quality assurance and significant change control.

Proactive approach to identifying and implementing best practices and process improvements.

Integral to a multi-disciplinary team that took a prototype hardware product through planning, field testing, and launch. Creatively, and in collaboration with solutions architects, solved the emergent issues through the different iterations of hardware and software deliverables and trained end users. 

Set up procedures, tailored processes, and wrote technical user manuals.

Successfully introduced and supported a real-time monitoring and remote communications service to assets on the extremely remote North Slope of Alaska. Swiftly formulated resolutions to the daily, challenging problems to avoid disruptions in service. 

Petroleum Engineering, Reservoir

Graduate Student of the Year Award, 1997

Research & Teaching Assistantships