Dayal Parkash: leader in energy, performance & sustainability

What is your professional and educational background?

I am a Petroleum Engineer with a masters degree from Politecnico di Torino and nearly a decade of experience delivering complex drilling projects for multinational energy companies. My work sits at the intersection of engineering execution, capital deployment, risk management and cross-functional leadership across diverse geographies.

What is the most exciting thing about your work?

What excites me most is the inherently cross-functional nature of the industry and drilling engineering. The role requires balancing capital efficiency, operational risk, technology selection, stakeholder alignment and people’s leadership – often under time and cost pressure. This breadth has shaped my interest in enterprise-level decision-making rather than purely technical optimisation.

What attracted you to Cambridge Judge Business School and the Executive MBA?

Cambridge’s close connection between science, technology and business really resonated with me given my background in energy and engineering. What stood out at Cambridge Judge was the discussion-led learning and the diversity of the cohort – people with deep experience who challenge each other’s thinking rather than simply sharing it. That environment felt like the right place for me to step back from technical leadership and develop a broader, enterprise-level strategic perspective.

What are you hoping to get out of the Executive MBA?

Through the Executive MBA, I aim to strengthen my leadership judgment, deepen my understanding of financial markets and develop a strategic lens on competitive advantage and sustainability. I see skill acquisition as a form of long-term value creation, and Cambridge’s faculty and cohort diversity provide a rare opportunity to compound this learning at both individual and organisational levels.

What are your long-term career ambitions?

In the long term, I aspire to influence strategic decision-making within global energy and organisations I am affiliated with, helping them balance productivity, sustainability and capital discipline in a resource-constrained world. Equally important to me is building cultures grounded in empathy and accountability, as I believe sustainable performance is inseparable from how organisations treat their people.