In a cyclical industry like energy, change is a guaranteed factor. Prices move and policies shift. The companies that hold up through shifting environments are the ones built to operate within multiple market conditions.
I believe that the differentiator between the companies that make it and the companies that don’t isn’t luck, access to capital, or even size. It's discipline that is the major factor. And that mindset, for me, comes from engineering.
Before founding an oil and gas company, I trained and worked as a chemical engineer. I spent time in the field and watched what happened when shortcuts were taken. Engineering does not tolerate a lack of discipline because if you miscalculate a pressure drop or underestimate a thermal load, things can go sideways fast.
I’ve found that engineering principles are not confined to pipes and flow simulations. They apply just as effectively to business decisions. This is why discipline is what guides how I lead my operations today, from capital decisions to drilling execution.
First Principles Over Forecasts
In this business, it’s easy to get caught up in price swings. When oil jumps, people want to chase production. When it drops, they want to pull back and wait it out. I’ve seen both reactions, and neither is an effective strategy.
One of the first things you learn as an engineer is to strip a problem down to what’s actually true. In chemical engineering, that means starting with first principles: mass balance, energy balance, and system constraints. Those are fixed and don’t change.
At the end of the day, volatility doesn’t change the fundamentals, it doesn’t make a reservoir better or worse overnight, and it doesn’t reduce your cost structure or improve execution in the field.
The real questions don’t change. In drilling, we ask:
Can we drill it?
Can we complete it efficiently?
And will it produce the way we expect?
If those answers are sound, you have a project that merits further development.
Energy leaders should focus on what we can control and make decisions based on fundamentals, not forecasts.
Repeatability Is the True Edge
Entrepreneurial leadership often gets conflated with “visionary thinking.” But in energy, vision without repeatability is just speculation. Process engineering is about building systems that work over and over again. That mindset, applied to energy operations, changes how a team thinks.
Can we consistently eliminate a day from our spud-to-drilling depth timeline? Can we standardize our pad development to reduce the risk of errors during batch completions? Can we put together a drilling team that understands why half a degree of inclination matters?
These are boring questions to some, but to me, that's where the operational advantage comes from.
Discipline Is a Strategy, Not a Personality Trait
I’ve often heard discipline described as being a personality trait but I see it as an operational strategy. When you understand your constraints, like time, capital, or technical risk, you stop making gut calls and start making more disciplined decisions. Discipline isn’t about being rigid. It’s about knowing your limits so you don’t waste time or capital.
This type of disciplined mindset has shaped my approach to growth. I don’t chase every basin or every lease. I instead focus on areas where our team’s domain knowledge is strongest, where public data is available, and where our operating model is most efficient. This can feel slow in an industry that rewards bold moves, but I’d rather be prepared.
The startup cliche of “move fast and break things” wouldn’t translate well to energy infrastructure. Break things here, and someone might get hurt. Energy entrepreneurs must move deliberately but we can still be aggressive as long as we couple that with deliberate action.
Leadership in the energy space requires something different than charisma or being a “disruptor.” It requires an understanding of how all the pieces fit together. It also requires a tolerance for technical nuance and the drive to get a little better each time.
Separating noise from reality takes experience. In my opinion it takes systems thinking. And more than anything, it takes discipline.
— Adam Ferrari is CEO at Phoenix Energy. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, following receipt of his bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, magna cum laude, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He began his career with BP America in the Gulf of Mexico, then spent a stint in investment banking at Macquarie Capital, before transitioning back to the operating side with then-startup Halcón Resources Corporation. Following his tenure at Halcón, Adam pursued entrepreneurial opportunities in the mineral-acquisitions side of the oil and gas industry, which ultimately led him to Phoenix Energy.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s employer or any affiliated organizations.
Copyright © 2026 California Business Journal. All Rights Reserved.
For California Business Journal Disclaimers, go to /terms-conditions/.