Paragon is supporting an international Oil & Gas company in the search for a Head of Business Planning position in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

This high impact leadership position serves as the primary architect of the organization’s long-term growth and resilience, to lead the end-to-end development of the business plan, ensuring that every asset and investment in the portfolio is optimized for value creation in a volatile global energy market.

Position Title: Head of Business Planning
Location: Dubai, UAE

Job Purpose

Lead the end-to-end development and implementation of the Annual Business Plan, ensuring comprehensive alignment between long-term vision and immediate operational execution.
Serve as a strategic gatekeeper by providing rigorous challenge to business unit proposals; oversee financial modeling and multi-variable scenario planning to optimize resource allocation and de-risk growth objectives.
Synthesize complex performance metrics into high-impact executive briefings, delivering the insights and strategic recommendations necessary for the Board to navigate high-stakes decision-making.

Key Responsibilities:
Strategic Planning

Lead the development of short- and longer-term strategic business plans and specifically the development of the annual 5-year Business Plan.
Ensure the Business Plan is aligned with the strategy and the vision of the organization.
Ensure plans are deliverable via appropriate target setting / assurance. Identify risks, provide challenges.
Monitor and evaluate global developments to identify emerging industry disruptions and growth opportunities, ensuring long-term corporate strategy remains resilient and aligned with global changes
Play an active role to support the company’s Business Units in developing their strategies.

Forecasting

Develop scenario models to help determine the impact of changes or risks that face the organization
Ensure alignment between the business plan, financial plans and operations
Oversee and manage the company's portfolio of upstream (exploration & production).
Assess new business opportunities, including potential markets, emerging technologies, and strategic partnerships.
Test robustness of current portfolio, business models and capabilities to deliver the strategy.
Forecast oil prices, supply-demand balances, and geopolitical risks to inform the company’s short- and long-term business strategies.
Maintain up-to-date economic model for the company’s portfolio and provide coherent economic analysis accordingly.
Review Integrated Field Development Plans in respect of assets, projects or activities to ensure alignment of the technical options with strategy and ensure a strong and robust business case.
Identify potential resource bottlenecks, unique requirements, contingencies and plan accordingly.

Governance

Continually coordinate business plan inputs company-wide to ensure availability of accurate and up-to-date analysis, collaborating with the departments to provide guidance and challenge.
Prepare reports to outline progress and risks throughout the year to senior stakeholders
Actively engages in the preparation and presentations to the Board to obtain approval.
Establish a governance framework to provide structure to the business planning cycle and understanding of responsibilities across departments. Ensure the Business Plan process is linked to the budget preparation process managed by Finance.
Develop corporate policies and business strategies that respond to industry trends, global energy demands, and regulatory changes.
Effective involvement in Investment Memorandums processes.

Insights and Improvements

Conduct analysis to identify trends, risks, areas for improvements or increased efficiencies
Develop a deep understanding of the asset value chain in order to generate value creation ideas and opportunities and advise management with regards to impact on long term strategy and planning.
Support initiatives related to mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures to enhance the company’s asset base and competitive positioning.
Benchmark against peers to identify gaps and set performance standards
Identify underperforming assets or segments and recommend strategies for improvement or divestment.
Identify processes to improve ways of working, planning tools and systems
Lead the review of implementation of strategic initiatives to assess their impact and successfulness, sharing learnings company-wide
Perform other related functions as assigned in the areas of corporate planning, including participation in external consultant’s activities, committees and task forces, studies, analysis and reports on critical issues
Ensure alignment with global sustainability business models and full understanding with corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks.
Support department staff in meeting needs for employee training, development and skill gap closure.
Coach employees to develop their knowledge and skills.
Mentor staff to ensure appropriate succession management.

Job Factors

Minimum Education
Bachelor’s Degree in Business or Finance

The minimum years of experience required
Minimum 12 years’ experience in developing and executing business plans in energy sector, commercial finance, spearheading the utilization of strategic scorecards to evaluate business health, ensuring progress tracking and the proactive mitigation of performance deficits

Skills:

Technical & Functional Expertise

Upstream Economic Modeling: Mastery of project economics
Strategic Portfolio Management: Experience in assessing the robustness of upstream assets and identifying opportunities for M&A, divestment, or joint ventures.
Oil & Gas Market Intelligence: In-depth knowledge of global energy supply-demand dynamics, price forecasting, and the impact of geopolitical risks on the industry.
Integrated Field Development (FDP) Literacy: Ability to review technical field plans and translate them into a commercial and strategic business case.
Risk Management & Scenario Planning: Proficiency in developing simulations, scenario models to test business resilience

Strategic Leadership & Governance

Corporate Planning Cycle Management: Proven ability to lead a 5-year business planning process, ensuring alignment between high-level vision and departmental budgets.
Performance Benchmarking: Skill in using industry KPIs to evaluate asset performance against global peers and identifying areas for operational efficiency.
Sustainability & ESG Integration: Understanding of global sustainability models and how to integrate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into long-term business strategy.

Interpersonal Skills

Executive Presence & Communication: The ability to distill complex economic and technical data into clear insights for Board-level presentations and Investment Memorandums.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Business parterning with the ability to challenge Business Unit heads and build consensus across technical, financial, and legal teams.
Analytical Critical Thinking: Identifiying resource bottlenecks, contingencies, and underperforming segments.
Mentorship & People Development: Coaching staff and managing succession planning to build a high-performing planning department.