The Big Interview: North Star Group CEO Matthew Gordon

Matthew Gordon took the helm as CEO of North Star Group just 12 months ago, steering the business into a new era of offshore support.

Earlier this year, its North Star Renewables division was chosen to provide three new service offshore vessels (SOVs) to support the first two phases of the Dogger Bank Wind Farm off the east coast of Yorkshire, which, when operational, will be the largest wind farm in the world.

While it is the Aberdeen headquartered company's first venture into the renewables market, the company has been synonymous with the North Sea oil and gas industry for four decades.

North Star (Shipping) currently supports around 60 offshore installations, and its fleet includes emergency response and rescue vessels, platform supply boats, and the world's largest fleet of daughter craft vessels.

Mr Gordon says North Star winning the Dogger Bank contract is the most significant moment in his career so far. Picture: Ross Johnston/Newsline Media.

How did you manage taking on your current role amid the pandemic – and what are your aims? Where are the biggest challenges?

You can only gain a true understanding of a business's strengths and weaknesses and where you can improve it by speaking to those who are immersed in its daily operations. The coronavirus restrictions last summer meant that meeting the workforce in the flesh was going to be impossible. However, becoming a "virtual" leader made me even more determined to find alternative ways to get to know the workforce as soon as possible.

I've always advocated involving the team in setting out a company's mission and vision for the future. North Star has 1,400 employees in the UK with a real mix of experience. We have a high number of personnel with ten to 25 years' tenure, and more than 100 young crew members in our cadet training programme. Plus, we are integrating the talented Boston Putford team following its acquisition in 2019.

With every new turbine feeding into the National Grid, we are one step closer to a net-zero future, the CEO also says. Picture: Ross Johnston/Newsline Media.

I arranged around two dozen one-to-one meetings with a cross-section of the workforce to help me understand what motivates them. Through these candid conversations, and other focus workshops, we established new values, new vision and mission for the business to take us forward together.

I was also fortunate that my predecessor Callum Bruce was available to help with a smooth transition before he moved onto the next phase of his career. He was with North Star for 34 years and I've no doubt that his positive presence during my familiarisation process aided my rapid acceptance by the team and confirmed to them that the baton was being passed on to a trusted, safe pair of hands.

My overarching aim is to accelerate the company's energy transition ambitions and secure its place as the market-leader in marine offshore wind infrastructure support in the UK, and further afield. While North Star's offshore wind strategy kicked off in 2018, the Dogger Bank tender arrived at the same time as I became CEO. Winning this – the company's first renewables-related contract – was an incredible achievement for the whole business and has catapulted us into the next stage of our growth trajectory.

Can you explain more about the group pivoting its focus to renewables?

North Star is an extremely well-established and robust UK organisation. We have the largest wholly owned British fleet and have been supporting the North Sea's oil and gas sector for more than 40 years, not to mention the fisheries industry for many decades before that.

Servicing the oil and gas industry will always be core to the business and we want to maintain our client base by delivering the same high standard of services to which our clients are accustomed. At the same time, we are forging forward to deliver this first renewables fleet contract, while looking ahead to winning further new business.

To support this objective, I decided to boost North Star's senior leadership team with experienced offshore wind personnel to help us deliver an integrated offshore infrastructure services offering. This approach has already proved to be a total gamechanger.

More broadly, what is your outlook for the offshore wind sector, which has been forecast to attract more than £60 billion in investment in the next five years?

We are on track to become the market-leading provider of marine offshore infrastructure support services, underpinned by our key focus on renewables, innovation, sustainability, care for the environment, and our employees.

As the energy transition progresses and there's more investment in offshore wind farms to support the UK and Scottish governments' carbon dioxide emission targets, there will be a growing requirement for SOVs to support the technicians working on offshore wind turbines.

All ships lift on a rising tide. While we'll see the first of our new SOV fleet delivered in 2023, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. We need to keep on top of technological advancements, listening to what the challenges are from our clients and understanding where we can create value.

Innovation is obviously very critical to what we do. We partner with some of the most exceptional technology specialists to ensure the SOVs (and new daughter craft) are comfortable, high-performing, sustainable and as future-proofed as possible.

The vessel's hybrid propulsion solution, for example, really pushes the envelope for this kind of specialised vessel and prepares it for carbon-neutral operations in the future when in-field charging infrastructure technology becomes available.

As the floating wind market matures there will be future opportunities for us there too.

How can COP26 in November help the industry gain further momentum, and to what extent can offshore wind help Scotland and the UK reach their net-zero targets?

The UK has been leading the world in offshore wind, and with every new turbine installed and feeding into the National Grid, we are one step closer to a net-zero future for this country. But there is still a huge amount to be done across the world if we are to combat climate change.

With COP26 happening in Glasgow, there's an opportunity for the talent, innovation, and the results being achieved here in green energy to be highlighted to hopefully influence other countries to speed up the implementation of their energy transition plans.

Can you explain how your career has progressed, for example you have held senior positions with Atlantic Offshore, Viking Seatech and Subsea 7... What has been the most formative moment so far?

Early on, when I was a engineer working on Y2K readiness, I realised I wanted to progress into management. I was advised to do an MBA, but back then the minimum age was 26. As I was only 24 at the time, I opted for a Master's in management at RGU in Aberdeen, which led to my first project engineering role.

When you are part of a large organisation where there are a lot of talented people, standing out isn't easy, so I just got my head down and worked hard. One of the most valuable ways to learn is to work alongside other people who are wiser and more experienced than you, absorbing all their advice.

I have been fortunate to have several mentors along the way from whom I could learn. I also had the confidence and self-belief to make a difference where I could.

The most significant moment in my career so far though, is winning Dogger Bank. It's the largest transition North Star has experienced since moving from deep sea fishing in the 1970s into oil and gas. We've created a foundation to grow, develop and internationalise the company in a positive way for many years to come.

You've highlighted plans for the group to keep expanding its fleet for UK and overseas waters and "take the business to the next level", while it has also flagged plans to boost its number of employees by 130. Can you give more details of goals for the next, say, five, years? Would this include more acquisitions, after snapping up Boston Putford Offshore Safety in 2019?

Our immediate plan is to successfully deliver these three vessels [for Dogger Bank] on time. This is a landmark project for us and because of the wind farm's scale, there are a lot of eyes on us at home and around the globe.

It also means that we are in a very strong position to leverage this success to win further new business and increase our renewables fleet.

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