From Field Engineer to CEO: What Engineering Taught Me About Leadership

I began my career as a field engineer, with a degree in mining engineering. Since then I have worked in audit and technical accounting at PwC, led an international payments company, co-founded a software company and now lead businesses in debt recovery, oil and gas, and consulting. People sometimes ask how an engineer ended up as a finance executive and CEO. The truth is that engineering never left. It shaped how I lead.

Respect the physics

In the field, wishful thinking does not move rock or oil. Plans must respect reality. In business, the equivalent is cash flow, regulation and customer behaviour. Strategies that ignore them fail, however elegant they look.

Measure before you decide

Engineers measure, test and verify. That habit made the move into accounting natural. Good decisions rest on reliable data, and leaders should know where their numbers come from.

Safety and controls are part of the work

On a site, safety procedures are not paperwork; they keep people alive. In finance, controls play the same role. I learned to treat compliance as part of how the work gets done, not something added afterwards.

Systems thinking

A failure in one part of a system often starts somewhere else. Businesses are the same: a customer complaint may begin in onboarding, a fraud loss in a weak approval process. Leaders need to look upstream.

Teams win, not individuals

Field work is collaborative and multidisciplinary. So is every complex engagement I have led since, combining finance, legal, technical and operational expertise. The leader's job is to make those disciplines speak the same language.

The move from engineering to finance

Changing careers felt like a risk at the time. I had technical skills and field experience, and I was starting again in a profession with its own language and qualifications. What I found was that the two disciplines complement each other. Engineering taught me how assets work. Accounting taught me how value is measured, reported and protected. Together they gave me a perspective that few people in either field have: I can sit with engineers to discuss a development plan and with bankers to discuss how it will be financed.

Five habits I carried from the field

• Walk the site. Reports never tell the whole story. Visit operations, talk to the people doing the work.
• Write down the assumptions. Every plan rests on them, and most failures come from an assumption no one tested.
• Plan for failure modes. Ask what happens when something breaks, not only when things go right.
• Respect safety and controls. They are part of doing the job well, never an obstacle.
• Debrief honestly. After every project, ask what worked, what did not and what we will change.

Advice for engineers who want to lead

Learn finance. Understand how projects are valued, financed and reported. Learn to communicate clearly with non-technical people. Seek roles that stretch you beyond your specialty. And stay curious. The skills that make a good engineer, structured thinking, attention to detail and respect for evidence, are exactly the skills organisations need in their leaders.

Leading across disciplines

Today I lead companies in asset recovery, upstream oil and gas, and compliance technology. Each requires a different technical vocabulary, but the leadership principles are the same: understand the work, measure what matters, respect controls, build strong teams and keep learning. My engineering background helps me ask practical questions; my finance background helps me test the answers. Leaders who can move between disciplines connect people and ideas that might otherwise never meet.

Keep learning

Each move in my career meant learning a new field: accounting standards, software development, payments regulation, recovery law, upstream finance. The willingness to start again as a learner is, I think, the most valuable habit any leader can keep.

Common questions

Can engineers become good CEOs?

Yes. Engineers bring structured thinking, respect for evidence and an understanding of operations. Adding finance, communication and people leadership skills prepares them for executive roles.

What did Anslem Oshionebo study?

He holds a bachelor's degree in mining engineering and a master's degree from Seton Hall University, and is an FCA (ICAN), CPA and Certified Fraud Examiner.