Brian Reisenburough:

[00:00:00] You gotta live for the next day. You don't live for the next month and the next year you live for the next day and the day after that. And one by one, you chip away at all the things that are coming at you. If you wanna see the soul of the company, look at the ESG and look at why they do things. If you wanna leave the orchestra, you have to be ready to turn your back in.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:00:15] The crowd don't want to be part of the 99 percentile. I want part of 1% off through most of my life as CEO. I've been misunderstood because of that.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:00:59] Brian, welcome to our podcast, rethink Change. We appreciate you being here and we know that there are few people that we talk to who've navigated change as much as you have. So welcome.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:01:11] Thank you

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:01:12] for having me look forward to this discussion ab Absolutely. Us too. So for starters, why don't you give a 62nd cliff notes of your background into really the lead up to your position today.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:01:25] Sure. Uh, so I'm, uh, I'm Canadian. I always start with that. That's, that's a good way to start these days, it seems. Uh, technical background. Grew up in a small town in eastern Canada. Always wanted to in the oil sector and migrated out to Calgary and started my oil, uh, journey there. I got hired by mobile oil in Calgary and they progressed and moved me south to Denver, where I spent a few years in Dallas, where I spent six years.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:01:47] Uh, went back to graduate school u University of Texas and then, uh, back up to Calgary with my wife this time. And then a, a, a real, uh, pivot my career is they sent me back down to Dallas to look at this thing called Deep Water in Gulf of Mexico, which I'm sure we'll get into in the podcast. And that, uh, began my journey in deep water for almost 25 years in the Gulf of Mexico.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:02:06] I went up to business school in Harvard and that changed my, uh, trajectory as well. Spent 17 years with nex. Uh, and then I decided in 2010 to do my own thing. I always wanted to start my own oil company and, and, uh, went out and I raised 1,000,000,002, uh, dollars to start a private equity, uh, backed oil company.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:02:24] Uh, built that up and, and had a great run. Annette discovered my second giant discovery in that venture. Uh, and then we ended up winding that company down during the downturn in 2018, did another startup called Navarro, where I was backed by Carlisle looking at, at buying acquisitions and deep water. Took a, a number of shots on gold to buy big assets, and the Gulf of Mexico was a big advocate of buying production at that period of time.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:02:49] Unfortunately, sellers didn't have the same view in the price curve as I did, so we never could close a, a deal. And then, uh, I got a call from a headhunter, um, who knows me quite well. He's, he's followed my journey and said, Brian, I have this, uh, job for you. CEO job we're doing. It's, it's not down your fairway at all.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:03:05] Uh, you're a deep water guy, a big capital guy. This is onshore in Namibia. And public company. Uh, but you're exactly what they need, which is a turnaround champion. So I, I took, uh, this job, gosh, almost two years ago now. It's hard to believe, uh, I've been changing this company. This is my, this will be my third start up or start over as they call it.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:03:25] So, uh, this is what I'm wired to do.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:03:27] And what did you find when you got to recon?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:03:31] Found that I was a lot messier than I anticipated, put it that way. Uh, I under un underestimated a bunch of things and there was a, you know, there's a lot of reasons why I, I shouldn't have taken this job. The company had a history of, uh, some legal students background, some over promotion, insider trading, core reputation industry, uh, all those things.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:03:50] But, um, you know, I sat down with my wife and I said, you know, this is something that I really can. Turn around, forget the right people around me. And she, you know, is always a team as you know. Uh, we've been together for three years and she's been through three startups too. But she said, this is what you're meant to do.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:04:07] So we, we took this. But when I got here, you know, the, the, the, the technical, um, capabilities were not exactly as I expected. The knowledge background of the executive group wasn't quite what I wanted. The board of directors really wasn't the type of board that I wanted to, to work with. So I was confronted with the challenges on, at my level above me and below me, and external as well.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:04:30] So, uh, luckily I brought on my business partner, Adam Ruben, general Council's, been with him for 20 years and, uh, I told the board at the time, I'm not coming on unless he comes with me. It's a package deal. They, uh, you know, I give him credit. They said, sure. Didn't ask any questions. Didn't ask what I was paying them anything.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:04:49] But Adam and I came on and we've, we've tackled some really difficult problems historically, and this one here was tough. And, uh, he's the guy who, who keeps me between the guardrails, but also he, um, walks me back from the edge of the cliff. There were times I said, this is too much here. It's not gonna work.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:05:04] He said, listen, we, we can do this. Hang on. Uh, and, and, uh, step back a bit because I, you know, I'm at the front of the line here. I, I get the, I get the criticisms of the market. I get the shareholders, uh, discontent and I get employees who don't like things, and I got a share price. That's not where it needs to be.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:05:20] And the industry who looks at the company as a joke, you know, those are the challenges I faced on this one. And in many ways. This has been, uh, I've had a pretty, a similar one years ago. Next I'll talk about, but this is probably more challenging than Ari. Ari was the company I founded in 2011. I raised a billion to tremendous pressure on you to to, to perform with that amount of capital behind you.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:05:42] But that company was mine, right? I wrote the business plan. I started from scratch. Everything had my DNA on it. This one here, I walked into a company that had a different DNA than me. So I had to think, think about how to rejig all that. It is taken a while, but, but now I believe almost two years in this is a different company.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:06:00] We have a, a clean slate. Technically, I brought in some real rainmakers on the technical side, which you need. I brought in the, uh, executive team and, and increased their thinking. 'cause I, I really felt the executive team at the time I came in was very tactical. Not very strategic. I feel executive teams need to be more strategic than tactical.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:06:19] We revamped that and, and we've revamped the board as well. I'm, I'm really pleased with how our board of directors is now and we have legitimate competence in the board. Our dialogue between management and and board is really good right now. The chemistry is great, so all those pieces have taken some while to figure out how they fit in, but they're coming together right now.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:06:37] You've had a tremendous amount of uncertainty that you've had to navigate. How do you approach doing that as a leader?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:06:43] My career is, is embedded in uncertainty. You know, listen, I, I'm a explorationist by background. Uh, and that embedded in you is a tremendous degree of optimism. You know, you, uh, we drill well as, listen, my previous two companies, I drilled the wells in Gulf of Mexico, $200 million in a shop. [00:07:00]

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:07:00] A wonderful chance of hitting. So that's not for the faint of heart people. And, and you gotta really believe in your journey. You gotta have tremendous amount of grit to keep, keep going after things for a long-term goal. Everybody's mind is wired differently. It's part of being an entrepreneur, it's part of being a serial oil finder.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:07:18] And as part of being a, a fixer as well, my general counsel, Adam Rubin always, he tells me a lot of things, but he always tells me a story. He said, Brian, if there's 10 doors in front of you and nine doors are shut, you'll focus on the one door only. Whereas other people worry about those nine other doors.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:07:36] So that's sort of my mentality and uh, I can't tell you how many times I've gone after deals. I, I've had to wake up from devastating drive holes to, to uh, reengage a team. And that just takes some soul searching on what you really wanna do. And listen, I love what I do. I've loved what I've done for 20 years, and if I didn't love it, I wouldn't be able to get, get outta bed.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:07:56] When you drill dry holes or when you're trying to fix a company, that's a mess. But you, I love it. So that's part of. How you navigate uncertainty, but, but also navigate uncertainty means balancing things out. You know, I've been lucky and blessed. I've made a lot of oil scars in my career. Uh, I've, I've drilled as many dry holes as I've had discoveries, and, and that's actually a good thing, ironically, but the dry holes are the ones that really shape you, uh, how you think and how you behave around teams and, and how you, uh, build a, a company around some, uh, isolated points of failure.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:08:29] You know, it's, it's the whole package for me and how I think about it.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:08:32] Recons a little bit different because you've got arrows coming from all, all sides. Absolutely. Community, internal, investor, external, you name it. What's been the biggest challenge and have there been any surprises?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:08:45] The, the biggest challenge is the, the inner linkage of, of issues, I guess, you know, I had to clean up internally, uh, I had to take care of business.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:08:54] I had to, uh, uh, really bring a team in that helped me understand the technical side of the story. That led to very gradually changing the industry perception of recon that we are legitimate. We are, you know, my, my, uh, key exploration guy, Chris Dubrinsky, is just, he's a rock star. He's one of the best that I've seen.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:09:12] And so I had to, I had to focus internal first. I sort of went stealth in the market. I, I took three or four months and just really figured out what I needed internally, get things sorted out, uh, and that internal would then go to the market. And, and very, very slowly and over time, uh, convinced, uh, exploration e and p market also shareholders, that it's a different team.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:09:34] When shareholders or companies get an hour with me and Chris Dubrinsky, they walk away convinced this is a different company. When we spend time with shareholders in an hour, they say they get it, uh, and, and they'll be behind us. But, but there's some rough roads in there. There's some periods. In my first three or four months, I said There's too many, too many arrows coming at me.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:09:53] There were some times that, you know, should I move on? And there was too much and, and, uh, it came down to a couple things is that, uh, I'm not a quitter. I, I joined the saying to fix it, I gotta fix it, you know, I'm in it for the long haul and got through that dark period, there was so many things coming at me, but you gotta, you gotta live for the next day.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:10:10] You don't live for the next month and the next year you live for the next day and the day after that and one by one you chip away at all the things that are coming at you.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:10:17] This company has a very different business model. Can you describe

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:10:22] Yeah. The business model is, is evolved. So when I came on board, recon was really a early entrant into new exploration base is high risk and capture the wells and and drill, and we still are a component of that.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:10:35] But what I've, uh, have done and, and the board has supported me is we really wanna get some fundamentals around the company. Uh, which means we wanna buy production, get an acquisition, and get cash flow and, and, and production underneath us. Uh, and that to me, puts recon in a different area in the marketplace, both in the, in the shareholders and the public.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:10:55] But also how companies look at us now. We now no longer a non revenue, have to rely on equity raises. We have cashflow. So, um, that's a emphasis where I really wanna have done in the next year, but I wanna use that cashflow to fund that high growth exploration. That's still part of our DNA, but I wanna fund it differently.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:11:13] So, um, that's the, that's the track we've been on and, and, uh. We're in a good spot right now. It's taken some while, started to get the, the team refocused on, on how we do our business, how we think. But we're, uh, we're, we're progressing quite well along that new strategic path.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:11:28] And your name is? Recon Africa.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:11:32] Tell me about Africa.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:11:33] Mm-hmm. Recon is Africa. Well, the company is focused in Namibia. Uh, they've been in Namibia. For, um, eight years now. Uh, Namibia is a, um, let's turn into a global hotspot for exploration, uh, largely 'cause of the offshore business. They have a number of big wells there at some good discoveries, uh, still going through some periods of uncertainty, how much oil's offshore, but they certainly have one large discovery.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:11:57] But what that's done is really tracked a lot of investment globally into Namibia. Now we're onshore. Uh, we do see a little bit of groundswell on that, but we're in the northern part of the country. Yet. If you've ever been to West Texas, it's like West Texas. I tell people it's tumbleweeds, cow, sheeps and dogs.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:12:13] That's what it is. No wildlife. Where we are, it's, that's far, far to the east. But it's a, it's a region that is easy to develop in. There's actually infrastructure around this part of Namibia hard lane, double lane highways with 18 wheelers on it 'cause of the mining sector. As you know, Namibia has a long history of mining so that that's led to an infrastructure and we're gonna benefit from that if we have a discovery.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:12:34] But that part of the one Namibia is a beautiful country. It's a very safe country. Uh, my, my colleague Chris Rinky has worked over 40 countries, says Namibia is Africa light. And, and it truly is. I mean, it's uh, a very friendly environment to go into. The government's a very crow business. People are happy.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:12:51] You walk into wind hook and people are just happy there. You know, it's a capital of the country. It's a stable banking, uh, system. It's a low corruption index. So all the things we, we wanna see in the new jurisdiction that has it now wouldn't Namibia is doing, it's going through an evolution of energy, you know, with all these big discoveries offshore.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:13:09] This will be the energy industry for Namibia. So, uh, as a result, they're going through growing pains and how to, how to really put the, the commercial framework and fiscal framework together, but they're getting a lot of help from the biggest players in the world offshore. I like Namibia a lot. I think if we find what we think we're gonna find this prospect, we're drilling that we will be the first production in Namibia.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:13:29] That's my goal, is that recon person's first drop of oil in the country, which would be a huge deal.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:13:35] Now one of the changes that you have to navigate is the oil industry doesn't exist on shore there, and you're in the middle of communities. How are you navigating that?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:13:46] Yeah, you know, I, I've been to the northern part of the Namibia a bunch.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:13:49] There's a, a city up there called du. It's about a hundred thousand people, uh, a very poor part of the country. Uh, we have a very well, uh, orchestrated stakeholder communication plan. Which means we have very defined targets of people who wanna speak from the Minister of energy down to the principals in the school and, and we communicate all the way up and down that value chain.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:14:09] So every stakeholder knows what we're doing, why we're doing, how we're doing in the Northern Party, maybe itself. That's where the, the rubber meets the, the matter that we really have to have a lot of people on the ground talking to villagers, telling them what we're doing, tell 'em how they're gonna benefit from what they're doing.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:14:26] Tell 'em operationally what we're doing is very safe. We've held over 2,500 community meetings over the last, uh, five years, 2,500. These are meetings of, of a few, a few people to a dozen people in the community. So that, that communication, what we do, has to a high, high Katie and a high degree of transparency.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:14:47] Uh, and they, they buy in. Now this part of the country has a high unemployment rate. Officially it's around 60, 65%. Unofficially is probably 70 to 80%. We represent a tremendous opportunity for prosperity, uh, in that part of the country, which we take very seriously. Uh, I take the the social life to operate very seriously when we go into regions like this.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:15:07] I wanna invest in the communities. I wanna invest in the people and, and leave something there for the long term, which is what I think recon has done. We've employed over 2,400 people in this part of the country over the last five years during our drilling operation. So it's, it's a full court press on communication, uh, transparency.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:15:25] And we're really have to work hard and there's always gonna be a small pop of people who disagree with you. And we have those NGOs and we have to deal with them, uh, very straight up actually. Uh, but, uh, we're doing things very, very safely in this part of the country. And, um, nothing, uh, is, is below everything's above table here and how we communicate with villagers and the communities that we operate in.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:15:48] And you're even going so far as to drill water wells.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:15:51] Yeah, that's a great point. So, you know, there's something, you know, I'm very proud of the ESG program, uh, recon. Um, uh, I'm very proud of how we interact with communities. We, I'll get to water rolls in a minute. We have 17 scholarships in country. We have 10 STEM Engineering science scholarships, and we have seven nursing scholarships in the northern part of Namibia and the Kago area.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:16:12] And these are young women who, um, you know, lived in, uh, 10 huts in the villages. They're now coming out with a degree nursing. And in fact, we graduated our first nursing student last fall and I was over there and spoke to her and she said, I'm, thank you so much. You have no idea what I've been through, uh, to get to this point.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:16:30] So we're, we're proud of that investment. And the thing about that nursing program is they stay in the region. They stay up in northern, uh, Namibia, which is, which is needed. Uh, the company did some very insightful a number of years ago. They worked for the government because of the northern part of Namibia sole core.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:16:44] And so, um, a starve the water. We worked with the government and identified the 36 of the most needy villages that needed water. We identified those and we drilled 36 solar powered water wells for each of these villages. And I, I went to visit one when I came on board ly and I tell investors and people I speak to it, it's really hard to describe what nothing is.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:17:09] But when I drove up to this village and it was two hours on the roughest road I've ever been on in my life, you come in and there's a open patch of, you know, probably a hundred meters in diameter with huts around the trees, and there's nothing there. These people live off the land. There's no satellites, there's no electrical lines.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:17:27] They live off the land and, uh, for the first time ever, they can now turn a faucet and get fresh water. And one of the reasons why we did this, worked with the government is that the women in these villages had to walk eight kilometers a day, twice a day, down to the OK Longa River, once in the morning, once in the evening to get water for their families.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:17:45] Uh, and this was people, the ladies with water on their heads. You've seen them in movies and, but the issue they're having. Is they're losing about eight to 10 women a year at the Crocodile Human Interface. Going down to the water, not coming back. Uh, these water wells, uh, what I call is a generational investment.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:18:02] If you wanna see the soul of the company, look at the ESG and look at why they do things. And, uh, we did this not because we had to, 'cause we wanted to, we did the scholarships, not 'cause we had to because we wanted to. So it's, I'm proud of that ESG program wanna replicate in other jurisdictions we go into.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:18:17] But, uh, it's heartwarming when you see that. And so many people, when they. Do podcasts with me or look at my history with Chris is when are you gonna find the next billion barrels of oil? We'll get to that, but I also wanna talk about this part of the company. This is just really important.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:18:31] I'm sure that's helped tremendously with the credibility within the, the communities to actually have tangible things as opposed to, here's some money for a school.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:18:39] Yeah. It has. Yeah, it has. We, we work with them. We go and visit these, uh, villages all the time. In fact, you know, we just signed a big exploration agreement in Angola on the other side. They were super keen to, to understand recons ESG program. So they can duplicate that and then go aside. So, um, industry's taking notice of this and yeah, we're a small cap company.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:19:01] We didn't need to look, do a lot of these things, right? This is typically what major oil companies do. I want to provide an example for oil companies of all scale and how they should invest in communities that they, they, uh, they invest.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:19:14] The company has gone through massive change in just two years. And if you were to look five years out, where's the company gonna be?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:19:22] Yeah, well, I think, uh, we're public. Uh, I, I believe we can build a billion dollar enterprise there. Uh, really the, with the, the, the, the team around me and the fundamentals we're doing right now, we can get there probably within five years, quite, quite honestly. You know, I want to have a full cycle EP company.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:19:38] Within the next year. Uh, that's important for the growth story. It's important for the longevity, and we have attractive different shareholder base. Uh, I still see us being international, uh, big advocate of West Africa right now, offshore and onshore. Uh, I love the continent. I some great country to work in.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:19:55] Some you don't wanna work in. But also see great opportunities there to grow with that strategic threat. You know, do we, uh, spread out to different parts of the world possibly. You know, I get a lot of things on my desk from Gulf of Mexico, as in my history, uh, big advocate of Gulf of Mexico for a whole number of reasons.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:20:10] So, you know, whether that's the long-term future, we'll, we'll see. But, you know, between now and three years and five years, I see the growth coming from particularly southern part of the African con continent. They, they really

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:20:21] need energy. When we're talking about particularly ESG stuff, that there is the danger of being accused of greenwashing.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:20:31] And with community involvement, there's a huge issue of, I don't know what color you would call the washing, but it's, it's kinda like you talk about it, but you don't do it, and how are you going to really navigate that?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:20:44] Yeah, no, there's a lot of that out. There's, it's, um, you know, it's, it's real, it's noise, but we also take it very seriously.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:20:50] I take the social lifes to operate very seriously in these, these regions. We want to, uh, discover Hydro Garden for this country. They need it desperately to, to, um, take a development country into a, a developed country. And I think energy's part of that equation. We're a big part of it. Uh, but also I tell investors and internal, we walk the talk.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:21:11] If we tell the market we're gonna do something, we do it. If we tell the minister of energy and the member, we're gonna do something and the communities we're gonna do it. We tell the villagers and the principals and the communities we're in that we're gonna drill well safely with fresh water, with no environmental, uh, footprint.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:21:26] We're gonna do that. But I also told 'em we're gonna communicate with you. We're gonna communicate what's go, what goes right and what goes wrong. Uh, and that's just part of the transparency, you know, oil industry is, is always gonna have resistance. Um, you know, look at the Canadian oil sands, one of the biggest resources in the world and it's had, um, environmental for as long as I can remember.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:21:45] But they've really changed the way they've done their business now, safely, environmentally, uh, in a good spot. Uh, we plan to do the same thing internationally. Listen, you know, extracting hydrocarbons is, is one of the more difficult jobs in the world and the oil and gas free doesn't do 'cause they like it.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:21:59] They do because it's needed. And, and that's, that's my view. And, and our small part of that, we, we do this because it's needed, uh, in this region and we want to have a huge impact on the country.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:22:10] So you have this very distinct, unique business philosophy. You have a very clear business strategy, and then you needed to come up with how do you position and message what recon is about going forward.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:22:25] Yeah. Can you describe that?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:22:26] Yeah, I mean, uh, a lot of just what we talked about. I mean, we are an oil and gas company where we, we wanna find, uh, hydrocarbons are responsibly, uh, and low carbon, uh, molecules as well. But we wanna do it, uh, in a way that's, uh, environmentally very friendly and in a way which the, the community benefit more than just the, the hydrocarbon we may produce.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:22:48] So that's part of our identity is that inside outlook. Uh, and we wanna be seen that way to the industry. We wanna be seen that way to governments. We wanna be seen that way to the communities that we invest in as well.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:22:59] And to align that with your messaging, you went through the guardrails process. Can you describe the process?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:23:08] It wasn't what I expected. I, I felt it was very thought provoking for the entire executive group that was there. It, it made us think about what we wanted to be and what we didn't wanna be. It made us think about, uh, at a deep level. What type of company we want to build long term and how we want that messaging to convey to the industry.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:23:28] You know, through a series of screening, through what we like, what we don't like, what we wanna be, what we don't wanna be. Um, we added on some really deeply embedded core values of the company, and that then fed into how we wanna rebrand the company, how we wanna look and feel. So it started was a, to me it was a, a deep dive.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:23:47] Sequentially and it's, it's very core issues. And then deconstructing that and building it back up into something you want to be. So that's how I, I view that whole process I thought was really good.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:23:57] Wa was there anything specifically that convinced you or showed you that, you know, we really need to bring in some outside help for this?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:24:03] Oh, absolutely. I, I felt almost from the day I arrived that. We're gonna need some, uh, external help to, to look at how to reposition, recon, 'cause its history. I mean, it had a pretty checkered history and I wanted to correct the course and, but I had to take care of a lot of things internally before we, we took those steps and when we embark on this, you know, six, eight months ago, it was the right time.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:24:25] To start, we, we've taken care of things and internally we turned the corner on the credibility side. Now, for me, it was time to bring in help to, to look at us objectively and say what you're, you're good at, what you're bad at, and, and ask those really probing questions that we don't typically think about.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:24:41] You know, I'm, I'm busy running the company. I'm busy, busy trying to think about how to outpace our competitors, and people beneath me are busy tactically executing the plan. We don't take the time to step back and say, let's put some different eyes in the company. How do you wanna reposition yourself? So that's what I felt the external help did.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:24:59] It came in and, and gave us a different lens to look at recon.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:25:03] You mentioned that the outcome and the experience wasn't what you had originally expected or anticipated going into it. Can you talk a little bit about that? In terms of, I, I assume you've done other executive sessions like this before? Yeah.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:25:15] Oh, we have, I've done lots of executive sessions that look at dissecting the team and personalities and what works and what doesn't work. And this was a different level. This is a corporate deep dive, core values. So that I felt was really, uh, really enlightening. You know, the previous companies that I, I formed and brand, it sort of came outta my head.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:25:35] Right. So Ari was, um. Birthed in my head and the, the name was in my head and we, we did go through a branding effort, but it was nowhere near as thought provoking as this one was. But it also, because of situation, we had a lot of history to deal with and we needed to change course and to change course.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:25:53] Sometimes you need some help on people looking at things differently than what you do. That's what I felt this process did. The previous company, you know, uh, I started it and uh, the name came outta my head. The vision came outta my head. The culture was incubated from internal, so a lot of things were organic that this one here, you had to change course, and that's in many ways more difficult.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:26:14] What was the reaction to the, uh, senior leadership team?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:26:18] Everybody when I said we gotta do this, and the board. Everybody agreed. You know, it is part of turn a chapter, it's part of turning the page and, and the recon and, and we, we call it Recon 2.0, but we wanna have a new name, new look, new new field that represents our company, the, the, you know, management team around me, the board around.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:26:39] I want the people around me to really have a sense of ownership in this new entity we're, we're dealing with. So it was embraced for all those reasons. Everybody felt it was great that it was needed. Nobody quite knew how to do it other than they knew it was needed. So from the board down to the executive group, it was broadly embraced that this is the right thing to do.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:26:58] And that's a good starting point because you know, when you have resistance internally that that's a, that's a tough starting point to be in, but it was unanimously across the board right thing to do at the right time. I couldn't have done this when I came in because I had too many things to deal with.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:27:12] It, need to take care of things for a while and feel we're in a good spot, and then, uh, start this process.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:27:18] Was there any aspect of the process that was particularly insightful or enlightening or almost like an aha moment?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:27:24] You know, I, I think at the very end when we went through a guard railing process where we sort of said, this is what we like about the company, this is what we don't like.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:27:32] Uh, and I hadn't really done, I've done that mentally, but not. See it on paper, and it was really good to see it on paper. But then when we started looking at the deep themes is, is when things started to really crystallize for me that this is pretty, this is a pretty cool process and that it hits the core, which is what I want, and I want a, a branding to come outta that core.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:27:50] And it was at that very end when we started taking pieces of what we wanted to be and thread them into a, a, a mission statement or. A purpose, uh, then that, that's where the light bulb came onto to me and said, everything sort of jives here, and it makes a ton of sense.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:28:04] Did you, uh, and your leadership team start acting or thinking differently afterwards?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:28:10] I felt there was a undertone, inflection point of pride that this really is gonna be our company. It really is gonna be new and different. Uh, this is ours. I had a piece in it. I had a piece in how we sort of came up with the name. So I sense that and the ownership, which is very important. You know, when you're, when you're championing change, you have to.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:28:28] You have to have a catalyst.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:28:29] Were there any surprises that, that came out of it? For instance, you know, you knew the position and differentiation would be clarified and codified, but the level of alignment amongst the, the leadership team was unexpected, for example. Or was there any, wow, I didn't expect this.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:28:44] You know, the, the alignment happened very quickly as executive team and, and, uh, you know, as a leader, I try to, it's tough for me sometimes. I try to sit back and, and listen and, and let the guide sort. Team have their own voice because if I, if I commit with a position first, people tend to follow that. So, uh, I was pleased that there, there was alignment, uh, on the executive team right up front on a lot of issues.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:29:08] There was no, there was no any single executive who said, this is just Matt. We're, we're not on the right path. That, that felt good. And that's part of the part of building a new high performance team.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:29:17] What would you say is the most important aspect of having a high performance team? Obviously you've been the leader of several organizations over the years.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:29:26] Yeah. The most important aspect of that is the outcome, which is execution. So that's, that's, uh, what I'm always focused on. You know, I'm a big advocate of accountability and driving, uh, performance that way. So it's been an adjustment for some team members to get used to that. The culture of, um, performance, performance, performance and, and accountability.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:29:45] Some folks don't like it, but, uh, I do hold people accountable, uh, when they, they slip and they, they know it, you know, that's the journey I've always been on for developing high performance teams around me. And setting expectations high. I'm a perfectionist. I have a high standard for myself, a highest standard for people around me.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:30:01] Once people sort of get over that hurdle, they, they have my trust forever it seems, but I gotta get people up to that level. Strategic thinking's another big part of the executive group. You know, I, I tried really hard to have the executive team think more strategically than tactically, and some people can elevate themselves and some people can't.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:30:19] It's just the mental framework of people. Um, but I, I think I have a core group around me that, that can go up and down, that escalator and think very strategically have influence on, on our thought process, but yet still take care of the business. So I'm curious, how did our paths cross originally? Yeah, the connections through one of my board of directors, uh, Joe Davies, who's on uh, another board who you rebranded was P as PKBB uh, B-K-B-P-K-B.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:30:47] Yeah. Uh, he had gone through the process and I talked to Joe about the rebranding and recon. I. To him about how important it was, and I wanted to have a completely new clean feel. Uh, Andy pointed me to, to you guys saying, go, go look at these guys. Because they had, he was really impressed with the job you had done with them.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:31:05] And, uh, as I looked at the work you had done and I talked to both of you on the process you went through, I was pretty intrigued about how, how deep it is. It's not a, it's not a surfing the crest, the waves process. You, you dig pretty deep into things here. And that's what I wanted for this turnaround.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:31:21] Not all of our clients that go through a, a guardrails process like, like you did, require full rebrand.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:31:27] Yeah. Let's assume that you're at a UT football game talking to the guy next to you. Are there any signals or, or how would they speak to really have a light bulb go off in your head of, you know, you, you really need to go through a process like this?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:31:40] Yes. This is what their company does. They'll tell you what they do, but, but they really need to, when I look sometimes why they do it.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:31:47] Uh, and that's why I like it about recon is we got to why we do what we do. You know, some people sort of just go down this path, the career path on what they do and companies, what they do. So if, if someone's really trying to get deep down to the culture of fabric of company and deconstruct that, come up with something new, then this is the process for that.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:32:06] You have to sort of get a feel for a CEO what, what they're doing and how they wanna, what their journey they're on. Are they just managing the business or are they a, a cultural. Strategic change agent. If they're that, then this type of stuff's for them. If they're not, then it's probably, it's not for them.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:32:22] And what's their stomach for disruption?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:32:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta, you gotta, you know, you gotta be okay with that. Cohesion is needed, but also a certain degree of, of, um, not disruption, but strategic tension, I guess. And maybe that's the right way to put it, to drive performance. Complacency can really, uh, erode execution and that never want us to be complacent.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:32:42] So a lot, a lot of the listeners to this podcast are business leaders or aspiring business leaders. You've got just a wealth of knowledge and experience over the years and a lot of experiences that have shaped your perspective on how to approach leadership, how to approach culture, how to approach organizations.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:32:59] Yeah. Is it, what advice would you give. To somebody who's 30, who is trying to navigate the, the corporate ladder to really get into a leadership position successfully.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:33:09] I gave a talk at the University of Texas, uh, a couple months ago to Jackson School, and they asked a similar question. They wanted to understand my background.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:33:16] I said, what, what advice do you have for these new kids? And, and I had a couple things. One is, pick a part of the industry. You're, you love, you're passionate about, uh, and then all the hard work has not become, become hard work. It becomes part of your, your, your daily mental framework and a passion. Uh, I work all the time, but I do because I love what I do.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:33:34] Uh, I love the challenge of what I do. So any young person, I also, um, uh, advocate, they find that niche took me a while to figure that out. You know, come out of a school and all of a sudden have an aha and you're, it. You gotta have some failures along the way that land in the right spot. And I had that, but, you know, I, I, we encourage young professionals to do that.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:33:55] The other one is, and, and more in leadership. That if you wanna lead the orchestra, you have to be ready to turn your back in the crowd. And I've always had that philosophy. I wanna be a, a strong leader. Uh, I don't want to be part of the 99 percentile. I wanna be part of one percentile. Uh, and by doing that, you, you gotta accept the fact that you can be very vulnerable, uh, on a trailblazing, uh, path.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:34:16] But I also realized through most of my life as a CEO, I've been misunderstood. Of that strategically, I wanna take the company in one direction. People don't understand the the journey. They see the spots along the way, but they don't see the vision that's in my head. And that leads to a lot of the un misunderstanding for young people who wanna go into leadership roles, they gotta be prepared to lead to orchestra, but turn their back in the crowd.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:34:40] And, and go down that journey.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:34:42] Can you think of any anecdotal stories that have really shaped who you are as a leader or your, your, your career trajectory? Like, an example that I'll give you is in, in fact, I told a potential candidate at at Maker today in college. I, I had a summer internship where I was an accountant and it told me unequivocally that I will never be an accountant.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:35:01] I hated it. Are there any things that you've come across in your life? That just helps shape where, where you wanna go. There.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:35:08] There has been, and, and it relates to the question you just asked about, what advice do you have, like, uh, young people And one other thing I'll mention, I, I told this group is that there are points in times in your career where you just have to bet on yourself.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:35:19] Uh, you, you're gonna have to take a, a bet on you and nobody else. And, uh, I gave some stories about that and, you know, some are so in Inconsequentially. Never thought it'd be important, but it was hugely pivoted my, my journey. You know, one was very small. I was living in Calgary. I had a, a job and, and, uh, I loved Calgary and Mobile Oil hired me and they wanted me to move to Denver.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:35:40] Uh, for a, uh, a three month contract. I left and I wanted to do this because I really wanted to work for a major old company. I really wanted to get in the US and I had a bunch of friends at Calgary. So Brian, why would you leave a full-time job and go to this contract work? And I said, there's so much.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:35:54] They said, there's so much uncertainty. He said, actually, it's not uncertainty because it's me. I know what I can do once I get there and I went there and of course I spent eight years with Mobil and sent me to graduate school and off and beyond. The other one was more consequential in that when I was running I was CEO of president of Nixon, US.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:36:11] A great journey I was there for in the US for, for 10 years. Made, uh, 15 discover. The last one was the large score I made in my career, actually in a field called Appomattox. I had access to a private plan to fly back to Calgary, you know, a big stock option, pool, security, everything. And uh, I wanted to build my own company, so I left all of that.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:36:35] To go in and I took a, a position with Walmart Panas at the time called Executive residence. And where they said, Brian essentially come in and write a business plan, we'll fund you. So I left the corporate world and went into a small office by myself and, uh, scripted another business plan. That business plan ended up raising $1.2 billion and, uh, building a company that at its peak was worth almost $4 billion.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:36:58] You know, but that, but that sort of journey and betting on yourself is, uh, one that sort of resonates with me and the recon story, sort of that as well, you know, uh, a lot of people wouldn't take in that job, but I, I felt I wanted better on myself to turn this thing around and, and here we are in a good spot.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:37:16] Great, great stories. Thank you. For this podcast. We like to ask each person we interview. What did you expect us to ask that we didn't, or what do you wish we had asked you that you could have told something more?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:37:29] Yeah. I always think I have a unique story to tell, uh, the journey, uh, from, you know, a small town in New Brunswick to, uh, you know, a billion dollar raises and, and a billion barrel fields.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:37:41] You know, it's the grit and persistence that is needed to, to get to this point in your career. Tons of failure points. You know, Ari Company, I, I founded, uh, raised 1,000,000,002 and did another billion five and, and had a huge success run after that. Found a lot of oil. I had two and a half billion dollars behind me, but the downturn between 2015 and 18 took its toll on the investor group.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:38:06] Really did and, and I learned a valuable lesson from that and that it taught me that private and public money does not invest in, say, bandwidth as major oil companies. Major oil companies invest on a 10 15 year horizon. Public and private markets invest on a year to a maximum seven years. So, you know, even though Ari was a tremendous success, we had to sell a company in pieces and I had to leave the company.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:38:31] I found it because of that. And that sort of, uh, knocked you off the knees. Lemme put it that way. You know, I was, I was high flying, but I had to leave the company. I was, uh, founded because of the external environments and I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't do anything about it. That point in my career took a lot of deep soul searching.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:38:49] You know, did I have it in me to do another one of these? How would I do it? You know, at, uh, at a point in my career, which probably it changed me mentally as well in terms of mental toughness, and I come out to the other end and I hope people judge how you come out at the end, not how you, um, you're in the bottom.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:39:05] So there's certain things that when you hit failure, you, you step back. And so that I learned things I will never do again. What were some of the things I will never do this again.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:39:15] Private equity is a tough world. Uh, and, you know, uh, you know, the ARI story is a incredible story, a credible experience, and I, I described to people, I had so much money behind me in such a small, concentrated group.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:39:28] It's worse than being public. 'cause all these guys had four or $500 million a piece. Betting on me and the team around me. So the, the focus was intense on that. So, private equity, I, you know, I, I probably would look at it with a, a wide open eyes to give 'em my experience. So does that mean things I wouldn't have done?

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:39:45] You know, the, the failures have been, uh, uh, some of them easy to manage, some of them really tough, but. I also believe it's, it's built in me a tremendous amount of resilience, uh, and, and confidence to be able to do things like a Recon Africa. You know, a lot of people would never have taken this role because of that.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:40:01] So I look back on all the dots and how they connect, and I'm, you know, I don't know if it would've changed anything other than I'd like go back and do it all again.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:40:09] This has been a fabulous session with you. Thank you so much. We've learned so much, and I think we're gonna come back before long, once the new name and new brand and everything closes and, uh, see where you are.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:40:23] Yeah. Well, we're, I'm excited to, to finally turn the corner. Uh, I'm really excited about the rebranding we've done and finish that off. I really think where we landed. Is, is what I wanted it, it touched the soul of the company. Uh, and it's, uh, it's gonna be a new company, so I'm

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:40:39] really, really happy where we're at.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:40:40] Just gotta finish it. Now. This has really, really been insightful and in fact, I'm sure I think of everyone who we speak to. You're gonna be the one unique person who you are still the middle of the process to when, when we speak to you, to where you've got a completely different perspective to where it's, it's not complete.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:40:58] The story is yet to be written.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:41:00] It is. Yeah. Yeah. We're on chapter one of a, of a really good book, so.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:41:07] Well, thank you so much, Brian. Thanks for your time and, uh, good luck on your travels.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:41:11] Absolutely.

Brian Reisenburough:

[00:41:12] I really enjoyed talking to you guys.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:41:13] Absolutely. Talk soon. Thanks for listening to Rethink Change.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:41:18] If you enjoyed this episode, please share it and be sure to follow the show so you don't miss a single episode. If you're a disruptor looking to challenge the status quo and don't know where to start or what to do next, Pennebaker can help. Find out more at Pennebaker.com.