Built Where Strategy Has to Work
Dwayne C. Barnwell’s career began not in a boardroom, but around complex systems where precision, readiness, and accountability mattered every day. As a U.S. Navy Gas Turbine Systems Technician, he learned how disciplined execution keeps high-stakes operations moving. That foundation shaped the way he thinks about every client problem: strategy is only valuable when it can survive contact with operating reality.
Veteran Owned
U.S. Navy
SLB
Weatherford
NOV
Black Gold Rental Tools
McKinsey & Company
Point B
Field Execution, Product Leadership, and Operating Accountability
After the Navy, Dwayne spent nearly two decades in global energy operations with SLB, Weatherford, and NOV. He worked across managed pressure drilling, offshore and onshore delivery environments, product development, technology commercialization, client operations, and global business priorities. This was not abstract advisory work. It was execution in environments where cost, safety, uptime, client trust, and technical performance all mattered at once.
At NOV, he moved deeper into product and technology leadership, helping commercialize advanced drilling solutions and translate field needs into practical technology roadmaps. At Black Gold Rental Tools, he stepped into operating-company leadership as Vice President of Operational Excellence, improving client experience, deployment discipline, responsiveness, and the operating infrastructure needed to sustain growth.
"The best strategy in the world dies in the conference room if the people implementing it don’t trust it, understand it, or have the tools to execute it. That’s the problem we solve."
Dwayne C. Barnwell, Founder & Managing Principal
Sharpened in Strategy and Transformation Advisory
Dwayne later brought that operator background into advisory work with McKinsey & Company, where he worked across strategy, procurement transformation, organizational performance, localization, operational improvement, and energy-sector transformation. That experience added a deeper analytical toolkit to an already practical operating foundation.
He then continued the strategy-to-execution arc at Point B, where the work centered on transformation delivery, governance, change management, risk and compliance analysis, sustainability priorities, and AI-enabled prototyping. That combination is central to BAG: rigorous thinking, grounded execution, and a bias toward outcomes clients can actually use.
The Credential Behind the Conviction
Dwayne holds a Master of Science in Finance and a Master of Science in Project Management, degrees that are not academic credentials alone, but frameworks that directly inform how Barnwell Advisory thinks about value creation, capital allocation, and disciplined program delivery. Combined with his PMP certification and Six Sigma training, these fundamentals are woven into how we approach every engagement, not as theory, but as operating practice.
Why Barnwell Advisory Exists
Dwayne founded The Barnwell Advisory Group because he recognized a persistent gap in the market: organizations that need rigorous strategic thinking and hands-on execution capability, and a partner who treats their outcomes as the only measure of success. Every engagement begins with a clear definition of the value at stake and ends only when that value has been captured.
The principal who sells the engagement manages the team that delivers it. As the firm grows and welcomes analysts who will develop into the next generation of senior practitioners, that standard of accountability travels with every engagement, from scoping through close.
