At Olsights, our mission is to make the energy transition easier to understand and act on. That vision is based on the experience of our co-founder and CEO, Tony Griffiths, who has spent his career at the sharp end of complex global energy projects. His journey from oil and gas to renewables shaped not only his outlook on the future of energy, but also the creation of Olsights Eye, our digital tool for visualising and simplifying the challenges of decarbonisation.
A Career Built on Projects That Matter
Tony began his career in oil and gas, spending the “first half” as a process engineering consultant. His early work covered concept design, operational support for onshore and offshore facilities, and FEED and detailed design for gas plants and platforms. Working across Woking, Aberdeen, and Perth (Western Australia), these years built the foundations of his technical and project management expertise.
He later moved to the developer/operator side of the business, spending over 15 years in Oman and London. His roles evolved into design governance, contractor and interface management, development planning, and economic screening. Working alongside geologists, reservoir engineers, commercial analysts, and operations teams, Tony began to appreciate that the greatest challenges in major projects were rarely technical, they were social and organisational.
His final oil and gas roles were as Engineering Manager and Team Leader on major FPSO and deepwater subsea projects, including frontline operations in Ghana and Houston. Along the way, he became fascinated by why organisations full of clever people often struggled to make good decisions. This curiosity led him to complete an MSc in Operational Research, exploring decision-making under uncertainty, the basis of how we work at Olsights.
Why the Switch?
By 2015, Tony was seeing a shift in the oil and gas industry. Corners were being cut, the quality of engineering was declining, and the work was no longer as rewarding as he previously found it. At the same time, his growing awareness of the cumulative climate impact of fossil fuels made him question the industry’s long-term role.
That question was answered in mid-2020, during the first COVID-19 lockdown, when redundancy offered the chance for a clean break. Tony decided to go “all in” on energy transition, convinced that the future lay in low-carbon, electrified systems.
Expertise That Shapes the Build
The skills Tony developed across 25 years of global oil and gas projects proved directly transferable. From process design and cost estimating to contract management and project economics, this experience ensures that Olsights Eye reflects the realities of building large-scale energy systems.
Equally influential was his exposure to probabilistic and stochastic methods used in oil and gas planning. These approaches, underused in energy transition, are now central to Olsights’ modelling of uncertainty, helping users explore multiple pathways for technologies such as hydrogen, carbon capture, and energy storage.
Beyond the technical, Tony’s appreciation for the organisational and policy-driven side of projects is embedded in Olsights Eye. The platform doesn’t just visualise emissions, transport routes, and storage, it helps stakeholders understand how projects align with policy, regulation, and commercial models.
Looking Forward
Tony often says that energy transition projects are “essentially the same as oil and gas projects, just without the burning.” Olsights is built on that down-to-earth perspective. The aim is not to reinvent the wheel, but to apply clarity, rigour, and objectivity to industries that urgently need it.
Today, the Olsights Eye is used to analyse CO₂ emission clusters, map transport and storage options, explore synergies with other technologies, and align with future policy. At its core is Tony’s conviction, built over decades of project experience, that better decisions come from better insights.
The question Tony asked himself in 2020 still resonates: “Where do you see yourself in 10–20 years?” For him, the answer was clear, not in oil and gas, but leading the development of modern toolkits like Olsights Eye to simplify work processes and accelerate the transition to net zero.
Connect with Tony on LinkedIn.
This article is based on an interview conducted for The Chemical Engineer Journal by Adam Duckett, which featured Tony among chemical engineers who have transitioned from oil and gas to greener pursuits to share insights that could help others make the switch. Read the original article here – Making a Clean Getaway.
