Succession Management: PEMEX Exploration and Production Identifies the Next Generation of Leadership
A case study by Bersin & Associates

As with any other oil company, PEMEX Exploration and Production (PEP) faces business challenges that include the urgent need to train and effectively develop its highly technical exploration and production professionals. For PEMEX the stakes are particularly high since their earnings represent 30% of the Mexican national budget.

PEP has created a comprehensive multi-year development program for employees in almost every technical role in the organization. Built around a competency model that enables PEP to estimate career potential, then design and deliver highly-targeted education and development, the program also implements multiyear career and succession models for strategic roles deemed critical to business continuity and expansion.

With many top-level executives near to retirement, Succession Planning is a key piece of PEP’s talent management strategy, generating an urgency to consolidate the talent pool from which the next generation of executives would come. Today, PEP has some 10,000 non-unioninzed employees engaged in a competencies-based development program, which includes more than 500 executive positions — 60% of which already have identified successors.

You’ll also learn:

• The rationale behind the decision to formalize succession planning practices at PEP
• How PEP’s succession planning was culturally influenced and conducted;
• The new approach for talent management in PEP and best practices;
• High-potential personnel validation;
• Succession planning results;
• The migration from internally-developed talent management information systems to a vendor-supported platform, and;
• Lessons learned.

This case study was written by:
Leighanne Levensaler, Principal Analyst, Bersin & Associates