Uriel Sáenz Has an Unlimited Mindset

Curiosity and a desire to explore have defined the twenty-six years of Uriel Sáenz’s finance career.

“I like to explore new ideas, methods, processes, and cultures, all with the idea of getting the best of the best and helping solve problems in the most efficient and effective way,” says Sáenz, the chief financial officer at the innovative natural gas virtual pipeline company Sapphire Gas Solutions.

Sáenz’s family moved from Mexico to the US shortly before he was born and later moved to Houston, so he grew up navigating a plurality of cultures. These early experiences primed him for the international business opportunities he would encounter down the line.

“I grew up with a dual culture and dual language. That helped me realize that there’s not just one way of doing things,” Sáenz says. “You want to make sure you’re not working within certain limits that are artificially placed on you by a social structure, culture, or upbringing. Always challenge those limits.”

Throughout his career, Sáenz has had notable experiences with companies like Honeywell, General Electric and Dresser-Rand. Those roles helped him build up his financial chops and further expand his international responsibilities. These roles have helped him establish strong business relationships across Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

In 2022, Sáenz sought to take his expertise to a growing, innovative company where he could make a big impact. “I wanted to take more ownership and responsibility in what’s happening financially and across the business, and that is more difficult to do within very large conglomerates,” Saenz explains. “So I started looking for smaller companies where I could take a leadership role as a CFO.”

This ambition brought him to Sapphire Gas Solutions, an industry leader in bringing innovative and unique natural gas mobile solutions nationwide. These solutions, which involve compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, and renewable natural gas, help public agencies and private businesses incorporate clean-burning natural gas and low-carbon intensity renewable natural gas.

Now, as CFO, Sáenz’s broad global market perspective allows him to see many avenues to solving difficult problems.

Sapphire Gas Solutions may be a smaller company by some standards, but it is also ranked by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in the US for the last two consecutive years. Since joining the company, Sáenz and his team have implemented transformational changes with a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, real-time Power BI business dashboards, and a systems platform that ties together operational and financials metrics and KPIs. This rollout strengthened the company’s internal processes and can serve as a platform to support that growth, including rapid integration of acquisitions.

“Manual processes don’t work well, especially in a high-growth environment like Sapphire’s,” Sáenz comments. “You have to think about agile, sustainable, long-term scalable processes. It’s not just an ERP system alone. It’s important to look at your full infrastructure footprint—how all the systems will interact and communicate with each other, and how the data will flow so that it can be combined and transformed into key business information and indicators that can help you pivot and make the right business decisions.”

Sáenz’s team has introduced business intelligence dashboards that pull data from different systems to provide forward-looking business analytics. These dashboards can drive decisions and provide real-time insights into the business that would otherwise take months to prepare. The team is also exploring how AI can streamline contracts, invoicing, and other internal processes.

Finding creative solutions from a holistic perspective is a recurring theme in Sáenz’s career. He strives to develop strong business partnerships across all company areas to foster overall growth.

“As a finance leader, it’s important to understand the interdependencies in the business,” Sáenz shares. “How everything interacts, how that impacts various parts of the business, and the different levers that can help you develop financial and business intelligence. That then can translate to the business’s strategic direction.”

Part of that strategy involves identifying business partners who can help in Sapphire’s road map. “We look for partners who can help us create value,” Sáenz specifies. “We look for those who have a long-term view of the partnership, rather than being transactional or opportunistic—and who show a genuine interest in learning our business and helping us with ongoing solutions.”

Sapphire has developed fruitful relationships with several business partners with key suppliers and service providers. Sáenz cites Texas Capital Bank and its risk management partner, McGriff, as examples. Another example is Sapphire’s key equipment manufacturers, who have worked closely with the operations and finance team to build custom-designed equipment and have been flexible in meeting Sapphire’s supply chain lead-time needs.

As a leader, Sáenz also exercises his solutions-oriented approach to business and building a strong team. “I do stretch and challenge my team members to help them develop and grow in their roles,” Sáenz shares. “But as a leader, my job is to remove obstacles for my team so they can succeed. Helping them achieve their goals as efficiently as possible also helps the company move closer to achieving organizational goals, so everyone benefits.”