Lauren Harner

I have been in oil and gas for my entire career, around 15 years, working in various positions from engineering to business. I started at Halliburton right out of school with my mechanical engineering degree, working in a very technical research and development role where I designed and tested equipment for offshore well testing. I really enjoyed that position and it challenged me technically, but around 4 years in, I realized I wanted to understand more of the business side. That's when I decided to get my MBA at SMU through the professional MBA program, focusing in energy finance. While working at Halliburton and getting my MBA, I was able to apply a lot of the business skill set I was learning directly to my role. When I was finishing up my MBA, I met the president at the time of HF Sinclair and spoke to him about creating a management development rotational program because I really wanted to understand the whole business and how each of the segments interact. Through that, I was able to start at the company and pilot this program, rotating through regulatory, business development, project engineering, and operations. In each rotation, I carved my own path and selected projects that would allow me to make an impact but also learn more about that side of the organization. I did that for 2 years, really gaining that holistic view, which led me into my next position on the market intelligence side in our commercial group. I supported our commercial side of the organization, helping them make better long-term decisions by looking at different macro and micro-economic impacts to the company and trends to help not only with our capital investment but day-to-day operational decisions. I did that for 4 years in a newly created group, and through my work there, they organically created the position I'm in now. I've been in my current role a little over 3 years as the Director of Business Analytics and Strategy, helping lead our Sinclair brand retail gasoline station side of the business. They did not have anyone on the strategy side for this side of the business, and through the skill sets I'd built up over my previous roles, they identified me as being a good fit to start up this group. I lead our business analytics and strategy, helping with our long-term growth strategy. On the retail side, we have very aggressive growth goals, and my team helps support the rest of the organization in ensuring we're making the best business decisions. We also look over all of our capital, ensuring that our partners are good stewards of our capital and we're growing the business in the regions that support our overall organization the best. I've developed this role from scratch, using my prior knowledge and analytical skill set to think through what the business needs are and building up my team to be able to support that and really push forward for our organization. My biggest achievement is developing this role and helping us reach record growth this past year through the ability to not only create a strategy but implement it and see it through.