Worley Parsons restructures IT, sends control to US

Engineering services firm Worley Parsons has lost two of its top IT executives and moved central IT leadership to the United States.

Chief information officer Brian Adams left the firm in July after more than five years in the role and ten years with the company. His deputy, chief technology officer Pete Wilson, was let go from Worley Parsons this month.

The moves are understood to be related to the firm’s decision to restructure IT and relocate technology leadership to its US operations, which is now the main driver of revenue for the company.

Australia has been hit hard by a downturn in global oil and gas prices in recent years, with Worley Parsons’ clients choosing to sweat their assets to save money rather than hire the engineering services firm for new projects.

The firm recently upped its cost reduction target from $300 million to $350 million by the end of fiscal year 2017.

It is unclear what impact the restructure will have on the Australian IT team. Worley Parsons' approximately 700-strong technology operations are scattered across the globe.

Wilson spent four years as CTO and global business solutions director at the firm, during which time he led an overhaul of the firm’s approach to IT cost management and IT services delivery, as well as the adoption of public and private cloud technologies.

The CTO role saw him manage the day to day operations of Worley Parsons globally, with IT teams across 18 countries servicing more than 30,000 end users.

Adams spent his tenure - much of which involved a directive to cut costs - working to “standardise, optimise and consolidate”.

He moved the global organisation onto the same Windows operating system and standardised infrastructure and services, whilst shifting IT from a ‘keeping the lights on’ role to offering support and innovation for the business.

His team’s delivery of Microsoft Lync and Sharepoint to 38,000 global staff, the core of the firm’s IT transformation, saw them named finalist in the industrial category of the iTnews Benchmark Awards in 2014. 

Adams has been replaced as CIO by Michael Dreiling, the former head of IT of engineering firm Aecom. Dreiling is based out of Texas.

The future of the CTO role at Worley Parsons is unclear. The firm did not respond to requests for comment.