Suncor says Rich Kruger to step aside as CEO in 2027

Rich Kruger will step down as chief executive officer of Suncor Energy Inc. SU-T next year, having engineered a turnaround through which the company’s oil sands production and profits surged.

Suncor said Thursday that Mr. Kruger will move to the role of executive vice-chair in April, 2027. He will be replaced by Peter Zebedee, the former CEO of LNG Canada and current executive vice-president of upstream at Calgary-based Suncor.

Mr. Kruger, who was previously CEO of rival Imperial Oil Ltd., was lured out of retirement in 2023 to lead Suncor after the company was targeted in an activist campaign by Elliott Investment Management LP.

Elliott’s list of grievances was long: Oil sands production had declined, per-barrel operating expenses were rising, stock was languishing and Suncor had the worst safety record in the oil patch. Former CEO Mark Little resigned amid that turmoil in 2022.

The activist investor has been supportive of Mr. Kruger’s turnaround strategy, which has helped boost the stock by nearly 80 per cent since he took the helm. On Tuesday, Suncor reported several record second-quarter results, including refining and product sales.

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In a statement Thursday, Elliott praised Mr. Kruger’s efforts, saying he brought about “profound transformation” at the company. It also said Mr. Zebedee’s operational experience makes him the ideal successor.

Menno Hulshof, managing director of equity research at TD Cowen, said the differences between today’s Suncor and how it looked in 2023 are “night and day.”

“There’s a massive improvement in the underlying fundamentals of the performance of the business,” and it is “running at a level that we’ve never seen,” Mr. Hulshof said.

Suncor had a record-breaking year of production in 2025. Earlier this year, it achieved a series of lofty three-year goals in only two, and has now set even higher targets. By 2028, the company aims to increase free cash flow by $2-billion, reduce the break-even cost of a barrel by US$5 to US$38, and boost the capacity of its refining network by 10 per cent to 511,000 barrels a day.

Mr. Hulshof credited Mr. Kruger with stripping various redundancies and unnecessary layers from the company and making a raft of changes to drive higher profits from every barrel.

Suncor aims to boost production, increase cash flow with new three-year goals

“They’ve done a much better job of not leaving margin on the table,” he said. “Under the prior leadership, there was a lot of that – a lot of financial leakage, I would call it.”

The culture at Suncor is also markedly different since Mr. Kruger took the helm, with more direct accountability within the company and executive-level bench strength “at a level that has never existed,” Mr. Hulshof said.

Martha Hall Findlay, who was Suncor’s chief sustainability officer under former CEO Mr. Little, said Mr. Kruger’s arrival brought a new level of intensity to the company.

“Rich has been – and still is, obviously – a tough and pretty demanding CEO,” she said in an interview.

“There were some people who really loved the culture at Suncor earlier. It was more relaxed. I don’t think you would say Rich Kruger is a relaxed kind of a guy, but I don’t think anybody can argue with the actual business results that Rich has been able to achieve with Suncor.”

A sometimes-blunt Minnesotan, Mr. Kruger ruffled political feathers in August, 2023, barely five months into his new job, when he said on an earnings call that the Suncor of old placed a “disproportionate emphasis on the longer-term energy transition.” The parliamentary natural resources committee hauled him to Ottawa to explain his remarks.

Suncor CEO Rich Kruger talks politics of oil and gas and the company’s future

But he also has a penchant for using analogies and quoting movies during earnings calls. Just this week he evoked the story of Noah’s Ark from the Book of Genesis to illustrate extreme rains in Fort McMurray, Alta., and he once compared Suncor products to cocktails.

“Think back to that old campus bar you went to in university. They served beer and, if it was a high-class joint, maybe some cheap wine out of a box,” he said during a 2024 business update. “Now I’ll come back to today. While others serve beer, Suncor’s serving craft cocktails. If our customers want synthetic sour, we got it. Synthetic sweet? Coming right up. Diluent on the rocks? Here it is. PFT neat? Enjoy. You get the point.”

Mr. Hulshof with TD Cowen put it this way: “He brings an energy to the business that you don’t see very often, and I think he’s very good at communicating very complicated things in ways that are not only relatively easy to understand, but also interesting to hear.”

Mr. Zebedee will move from his current role to president and chief financial officer on Sept. 14. He replaces former CFO Troy Little. Suncor said Thursday that Mr. Little – who was on this week’s earnings call – was no longer with the company. No reason was given for his departure.

While Mr. Zebedee will have “very big shoes to fill” as Suncor’s new CEO, Mr. Hulshof said, he’s a perfect fit for the role given his deep operational background across various types of oil and gas assets.

Ms. Hall Findlay said she’s “a big fan” of Mr. Zebedee, calling his promotion “a great move for the company.”

Suncor also announced Thursday that Adam Albeldawi, the company’s chief human resources officer and senior vice-president of external affairs, will take over from Mr. Zebedee. Shelley Powell, currently senior vice-president of operations improvement and support services, will become executive vice-president of development and projects.

With a report from Jeffrey Jones