Youssef Salem, CFO of Adnoc Drilling: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Youssef Salem (LinkedIn), CFO of Adnoc Drilling. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

I’m Youssef, CFO of Adnoc Drilling, which is the Abu Dhabi Exchange-listed drilling and oilfield services business of Adnoc. I’ve been with Adnoc for a year, with the last six months as CFO of Adnoc Drilling, and the six months before that as CFO of AIQ, which is Adnoc's AI joint venture with G42. Before that, I was a CFO of Swvl, which is listed on Nasdaq, and where I still sit on the board. Earlier, I was in banking — first with QInvest out of Doha and then with Moelis, focusing on energy infrastructure for Moelis in the Middle East and North Africa.

The job covers five main verticals. One is corporate development, under which falls M&A, joint ventures, partnerships, etc. The second vertical is strategy, where we do corporate planning and strategic initiatives, and the third vertical is financing and accounting — covering financial reporting and accounting controls. The fourth is a combination of treasury and corporate finance, which encompasses enterprise risk management, sustainability and ESG and ins. The last vertical is investor relations.

Typically, there would be a key focus every week, so let’s say this week — because of investor conferences in New York and Boston — we’re traveling and doing non-transaction roadshows, whether locally or internationally, so that would be the theme of the day. Sometimes we're in the middle of negotiations on the M&A side, so we're either going to the counterparties or we're on calls with them. Sometimes, it’s internal governance, or we have a board meeting and audit committee.

There's a calendar that drives what's going to be the main activity of every day, depending on the time of the quarter and year. When we approach the 45 days from the end of the quarter, we need to spend that focusing on getting the results out, preparing them, and going through all the approvals. The 45 days after the end of every quarter, and after we publish our financial results, you have a couple of days which are fully focused on earnings calls with the analysts, going to the brokerage floor to speak to the brokers, and then doing a roadshow and investor meetings first locally, and then abroad.

The three main trends in the oil and gas industry are energy security and sustainability, and AI. Everyone wants to get to net zero, and Adnoc is laser focused on getting to net zero by 2045 as opposed to 2050. On the other hand, with everything that's happening with the Russia-Ukraine war, energy security continues to come back as an important topic. Hence, how to balance these two is really a main part of the discussion.

The other thing is everyone's trying to figure out how to create value from AI. Everyone is looking at how to future-proof from a strategic perspective, as well as being at the forefront of what investors are expecting to see at the moment, so every business needs to have an AI strategy. This is twofold — on the one hand is generative AI, and the other is how to make your physical assets — like rigs and wells — more autonomous to create value.

In terms of my morning routine, I do one thing which is probably not very healthy, which is I wake up and immediately jump on my phone. I start swiping through everything — Slack, email, WhatsApp, Teams, etc — to see if anything urgent needs to be done. And if there is, I do that immediately and start calling and texting. If not, I head to the office. Generally, I prefer to get as many of the low hanging fruits that can be done quickly out of the way as possible so I can have as little as possible on the to do list.

I usually save my unwinding time for the weekend. The way I operate is, weekdays are for work, and then because the weekend is now two and a half days, and Fridays are shorter, I get a good weekend where I try to really focus on spending quality time with family. For me, that split ends up being more efficient than trying to do everything everyday.

I think work-life balance is very situational. For some people, the life side is not a luxury, like if you’re a young mom, for example — it’s critical because you’re taking care of something; while for others, the balance is just making sure that you're healthy, refreshed etc. Usually, in that case, you can afford to be more flexible on how you define that. The key thing is there's nothing wrong either way. If someone just wants to burn through work because at this point they're prioritizing their career or they see an opportunity, that’s absolutely fine and shouldn’t be put in a negative light. Equally if someone has certain family or social obligations they need to fulfill or they genuinely want to spend time and enjoy their lives, that’s also fine.

The only constant in my day is that there’s always something urgent to work on, so I’ve learned that I need to stay very flexible and not get frustrated. Another thing I do everyday is by the time I go to sleep, I make sure my WhatsApp is 100% cleared. I'm not the type of person who can end the day with unread messages. For me, the worst case scenario is something I can't handle right away. Even if I’m not actioning something right away, I flag it or respond, and come back to it later.

On a professional level, I've been very fortunate that it has all worked out with people that I’ve already been working with. At Adnoc, first I joined AIQ, and then from inside the organization, I got the opportunity to move to Drilling. Adnoc itself was a client for seven years out of Moelis before I joined them, so I knew the company inside out and was fundraising for them through my advisory work at Moelis. I've always had this kind of continuity, which I believe helps you from a career perspective achieve much more when you’re moving from within and working with people who have worked with you, as opposed to doing cold interviews and applications.

On a personal level, I have two young kids — Adam and Hannah, six and three — so my priority is to spend time with them and my wife Yomna.

When I want to switch off, I go to my kids, and I play soccer with Adam or squash with Adam, Hannah and Yomna. That's the one thing that kind of truly absorbs my attention, as opposed to if I’m alone.

Part of the reason I love Enterprise is that I really love short form. I prefer to consume information through reading because I get the flexibility to either go fast or slow or skim. My favorite Arabic writer is my good Egyptian friend Taher El Moataz Bellah — he has books on Russian President Vladimir Putin and on Princess Diana. On the English side, I enjoy economic case studies like The Bottom Bn, Why Nations Fail, and The Alchemy of Finance. I usually check out podcasts based on podcasters I like, so one I enjoy is Moghamra.

The best piece of advice I got was from my dad, who told me that you always have to pursue opportunities without thinking of what you're going to achieve out of every piece of work or person, because ultimately, relationships and referrals are the most powerful. If, every time, you look at what you’re going to get out of this, you're going to do very little; you're not going to be perceived greatly; and you're going to end up being very transactional. If you're constantly all in, supporting, helping, and connecting, you will also benefit in a lot of indirect ways.

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