Berg brings ‘Viking Row’ power to Viridien

In 1989 two young footballers, both called Henning Berg, faced one another on a football pitch in Norway. One would go on to win a clutch of trophies with Manchester United. The other got injured and decided to focus on his studies.

Some 35 years later, the Henning Berg that didn’t become a famous footballer has no regrets. Indeed, he can reflect on a successful, dynamic and much-longer career in the energy industry that recently culminated in his appointment as CEO of Viridien in June 2026.

Berg’s competitive footballing instincts have never left him. He openly admits to being driven by a love of winning. In accepting the challenge to captain Viridien, he thinks he has all the elements in place to do so. He is keen to stress that he took the job after a 29-year career at Schlumberger (now SLB), because of Viridien’s status as one of the world’s top-five industrial players in high-performance computing (HPC). 

As a young footballer playing the game at a high level in Norway, Berg was a deep-lying midfielder, dictating the play in front of him. He intends to display similar vision in shaping Viridien’s new strategy, which will be unveiled at a capital markets day for investors early next year.

‘There is no doubt we want to retain our leadership in our core business of seismic imaging, multi-client data, and sensing & monitoring solutions and we will continue to develop our AI and digital solutions,’ says the friendly and approachable 54-year-old.

However, an emerging theme will be strengthening Viridien’s ability to have ‘other legs to stand on’ during down-cycles in the energy industry. A key strand of that will be developing the company’s 700+ petaflop-strong HPC capabilities beyond seismic, he says. ‘We need to keep developing technology and look at what adjacent businesses we can grow into that are not as exposed to the cycles of oil and gas,’ he says. ‘We are among the top five industrial global players for HPC and we are starting to grow into other industries. We could do data processing for other sectors. It could be more scientific computing, which is a niche in the market that we excel in and is not really optimised for production or scalability by the hyper-scalers. It could be medical, finding new drugs, bio science, materials science, earth science, it could be R&D for industrial use. There are many sectors that use scientific-based algorithms to process data and that’s what we see as the niche in the market to grow into.’ 

Meanwhile, the war in the Middle East has impacted the company’s Sensing & Monitoring business line (SMO) because land seismic equipment sales in the region have ‘basically been on hold’ since February, says Berg. He wants Viridien’s infrastructure health monitoring business – the result of its acquisition of Geocomp Corporation in the US in 2022 – to offset this unexpected loss in revenue. ‘It is a growing market and a different one with different cycles from oil and gas. It’s a good business to lean on to offset some of the cycles we see in the oil and gas industry. It’s mostly a US business but it’s growing in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.  

‘Within our SMO business line, infrastructure monitoring has been about 20% of revenue, but now it is almost half of our backlog. It has longer lead times and we have to be patient. But in areas such as monitoring railways and tunnels there is a lot of potential in that market.’

Berg also wants Viridien to leverage its subsurface expertise and technology in the minerals and mining sector, using seismic imaging to help target ore bodies with better-placed drill holes. ‘It’s another growing sector and there’s a lot of interest from the big players in that business.’ 

Preparing for the ups and downs of the oil and gas industry will ensure long-term sustainability for the business, but Berg is confident Viridien’s core businesses will continue to rise next year. ‘In our Geoscience business we are the market leader with globally 55% of the market. That is a fantastic place to be in because we have the best technology and create the best images. That’s becoming more important. If you want to drill the best exploration well having the best image counts for a lot.'

‘The hit rate of frontier exploration wells in the industry has typically been 20-30%. Wells can cost $50-200 million in deep water. Customers see seismic imaging as a big differentiator for them in terms of their success. In the next two years, we will further develop and advance our digital solutions, improving how we deliver data and insights to customers.’

He is optimistic that the energy majors will be drilling more wells as part of the much-vaunted upcycle for the industry in 2027. ‘We see a lot of good indications in the market. Oil companies remained capital disciplined throughout this year and not many changed their budgets. Now the world has changed significantly in terms of the oil price and geopolitical uncertainty. The world needs more energy and an important part of the mix has to be oil and gas. Energy security is a big thing now and in parts of Asia and West Africa in particular there will be an exploration drive. Reserve replacement ratios are fairly low. All of that drives a positive outlook for the business. The question is how much energy will be needed?’

Budgets for 2027 will be set in the next couple of months. ‘We think the energy majors’ rise in capital budgets will be in the mid-single digits. That would be good. Some think this will be higher, some think it will be slightly lower.’

In response, Viridien will invest in its three core regions for multi-client data: Brazil, Gulf of America and Norway. ‘The reason we focused on those three is because that’s where you have stability of annual licensing rounds, fairly small blocks, many clients and lots of interest— and it’s a data-driven business.’ 

The company has a global library of 1.4 million km2 of 3D seismic data over key areas of the world including the Atlantic Equatorial Margin covering Suriname, Guyana, Brazil on the South American side and Morocco, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Angola, Namibia and South Africa on the West African side. ‘We are also optimistic that outside our core areas we will see the market expanding and plan to support targeted investments in these growing areas.’

Berg has vast and varied experiences to draw on as he approaches a pivotal year for the industry. He graduated in 1997 from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim with a Master of Science in thermal energy and fluid mechanics.  

Joining Schlumberger straight from university, he worked as a field engineer for five years, starting in Aberdeen and then working in Kazakhstan during the discovery of the first fields in the northern Caspian Sea. Berg was operations manager in the North Sea for two years, based in Norway and then worked in Paris for two years in charge of open-hole wireline technologies on a global scale. He spent three years in Moscow growing the wireline business in Russia. Then he shifted his focus to seismic between 2009 and 2011 running Europe, Africa and Russia for Western Geco, based in London. During this time Berg studied for an MSc in oil and gas management at Herriot Watt University in Aberdeen and Edinburgh Business School, which he graduated from in 2010. 

He returned to Norway when the company moved into the subsea sector. He was part of the management team that did the joint venture with Cameron International to form One Subsea in 2013. He was the first CEO of the Subsea Integration Alliance formed by OneSubsea and Subsea7 in 2017. In 2020 he was put in charge of the new Mid-Stream business and returned to the SLB OneSubsea joint venture in 2023-24. ‘Overall, I’ve been in charge of four global businesses, covering reservoir characterisation, seismic, geophysics and more production-related technologies.’

After a selection process that lasted nearly six months, he agreed to succeed Sophie Zurquiyah as Viridien CEO in June 2026. ‘I was at a time in my career when I thought I was ready for it. I had worked in the seismic industry before and really liked the business. That was important for me. I got on really well with the people I met. What attracted me was the technology. I’m a tech guy and I think it can solve a lot of things. It’s the interaction between people and technology that is really attractive and fun to work with.’ 

Berg has already tried to meet as many as Viridien’s 3000-strong staff as possible along with key clients. ‘I am very collaborative and I think it’s one of my strengths. I got that from my time in the army during my National Service in Norway before university, learning how to be a team leader, leading a group of eight on exercises “behind enemy lines”.’

His biggest challenge is to create revenues to continue paying down more of the company’s debt, which stood at $692 million when Viridien reported its Q2 results at the end of July (down from $856 million a year before). ‘The 2018 restructuring to create an asset-light strategy left us with a lot of debt and we have to focus on paying it down,’ he says. ‘Having debt on the balance sheet restricts us a bit from doing other things such as M&A activity.’

Yet he is optimistic for the future, especially – continuing the football theme – as he considers Viridien to have the best squad. ‘Global numbers for STEM education are a concern, but currently we don’t have a problem recruiting. Throughout 2025, we received more than 12,000 applications for graduate roles within our Geoscience business and offered jobs to less than 1% of applicants. It’s probably because we are recognised as a technology leader in our space. We cover geoscience, physics, mathematics, engineering, computer science and data science, which is a much wider pool of talent to call on from all over the world and our tech is very attractive to people.’

For Viridien going forward, Berg draws an analogy with Norway’s brilliant performances in the World Cup over the summer, which ended when England rather fortuitously beat them. ‘I was at the quarter final in Miami against England. We had a fantastic run. The team made the country extremely proud.’

He now wants Viridien’s 3000-strong staff, metaphorically at least, to do the ‘Viking Row’ in unison. ‘In business it’s the same. You have to have a really good team working with a common goal to achieve something together. That sense of achievement is key, which is why I think winning is also a very important part of the business.’ 

Berg in his own words

The son of an army officer, Henning Berg was born in Hamar, one hour north of Oslo, and cross-country skied to school in the winter. On Henning’s fourth birthday, his father gave him a Manchester United hat and scarf. He is a big fan of the club to this day. ‘During my childhood all my friends were Liverpool supporters. Then Fergie took over at Manchester United in 1986 and times got better.’

He and his wife, Annine, a former nurse, teacher and photographer, are the proud parents of two sons, who are 24 and 21. They also have a rescue dog from the streets of Houston and two cats. 

Berg’s elder son recently finished a computer science degree at Purdue University in Indiana and is working for an oil and gas company writing code. ‘I didn’t encourage him to join the industry. It was his own choice.’ His younger son is studying finance at Utah University in Salt Lake City.  

Since joining Viridien, Berg has been dividing his time between Paris and Houston, where he still has a family home. ‘Golf is my biggest hobby now. It’s one of those sports that as you get older you can still compete. I hate to lose, so it can be frustrating, but you just need one good shot and then you’re back.’