C-Suite Unplugged: Rich Kruger, President & CEO of Suncor

Jul 7, 2025

Rich Kruger, President and CEO of Suncor Energy, brings over 40 years of expertise in the oil and gas industry. He shares captivating stories about his global journey, including a surprise call from St. Lucia that led him back from retirement. The conversation dives into the importance of lifelong learning, leadership philosophies, and fostering unity across diverse cultures. Kruger emphasizes Canada’s pivotal moment to become a global energy superpower and discusses innovations transforming the industry, highlighting the need for a stable regulatory environment.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Leadership Across Cultures

People across cultures want similar things like safety, opportunity, and better life.
Leadership should focus on these shared similarities to motivate willing followers.

ANECDOTE

Retirement ended by beach call

Rich Kruger was pulled out of retirement by a phone call while relaxing in St. Lucia to lead Suncor Energy.
He saw it as an opportunity to make a difference leveraging his passion and experience in the oil and gas industry.

ADVICE

Prioritize Fundamentals for Success

Focus intensely on safety, operational integrity, reliability, and profitability for business success.
Provide clarity, simplify processes, and focus team efforts on fundamentals for peak performance.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

BCA President Adam Legge is joined by one of the most iconic leaders in Canada's energy sector, Rich Kruger, President and CEO of Suncor Energy, for a very special interview on C-Suite Unplugged.

Rich talks about a career in the oil and gas industry that spans over 40 years and some of the roles that took him from Minnesota to Texas to the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and now here in Alberta.

Adam and Rich talk about philosophies of life and leadership, including lifelong learning, embracing similarities across continents and cultures, and the 'living organism' of a multinational company.

Rich also shares some of his own entertaining stories, including how a phone call on a beach in St. Lucia pulled him out of retirement to lead one of Canada's largest energy companies, why a group of Canada's energy leaders wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, and what Rich is setting out to accomplish before he retires for good.

Rich and Adam also analyze the pivotal moment Canada finds itself in and what it will really take to make Canada an energy superpower for the world.

---------------------

About the Business Council of Alberta

The Business Council of Alberta was founded on a simple idea: to make life better for all Albertans. We believe that business has an important role in improving society, and that when business does well, we all do well. We work with the chief executives and leading entrepreneurs of Alberta’s largest enterprises to understand the big, long-term challenges that Albertans are facing and work with industry, government, and civil society to solve these problems and build shared prosperity for every person who calls Alberta home.

Check out more of our recent work: https://bit.ly/3JG9ifS

Listen to BCA Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3bHlfFB

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter: https://bit.ly/3BPxDhv