Organizational Transformation for the Energy Transition
Energy companies transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables face organizational challenges that mirror what Dr. Kurr has managed in pharma: legacy structures that resist change, cultures built around old business models, and the need to build entirely new capabilities while maintaining existing operations. Dr. Kurr's experience building organizations from scratch at Boehringer Ingelheim - creating new organizational capabilities alongside existing operations without disrupting either - provides the operational playbook. His change management approach, rooted in his five core leadership traits, ensures that transformation programs engage people rather than alienating them.
Joint Venture & Alliance Advisory
The energy transition is creating an explosion of joint ventures and consortia - partnerships for offshore wind development, hydrogen production, carbon capture and storage, battery manufacturing, and charging infrastructure. These alliances are complex, high-stakes, and frequently fail due to poor governance, misaligned incentives, or cultural incompatibility. Dr. Kurr's published expertise in cooperation management - including his book, doctoral thesis, and academic papers - provides a rigorous, evidence-based framework for structuring partnerships that deliver results. From partner selection through governance design to performance management, his methodology reduces the risk of alliance failure.
Shared Services Optimization
Asset-heavy energy and chemical companies maintain large support functions - finance, HR, procurement, HSE, IT - that often operate below efficiency benchmarks. Dr. Kurr's experience designing Global Business Services at Novartis and building scalable service organizations at Boehringer Ingelheim transfers directly to energy and chemicals. He helps companies design efficient shared services that reduce overhead while maintaining the operational resilience required in safety-critical industries. This includes location strategy, operating model design, governance frameworks, and technology enablement.
Change Management for Large-Scale Transformation
Leading people through large-scale organizational change in traditional industries requires patience, empathy, and strategic thinking - three qualities Dr. Kurr considers essential management principles. Energy and chemical companies have long-tenured workforces, strong functional identities, and deep expertise that must be preserved through transformation. Dr. Kurr's people-centered approach to change management - avoiding assumptions, practicing patience, and staying current by embracing change proactively - builds the trust and engagement needed to sustain transformation programs that may span years rather than quarters.