As president and chief executive officer of one of the Big Four service companies, Martin Craighead manages Baker Hughes Inc., a company that does business in 80 countries. He became chief executive officer in January 2012 when former chief executive Chad Deaton became executive chairman. Craighead, a petroleum engineer out of Penn State with an MBA from Vanderbilt, joined the company in 1986 and has served in a number of roles.

Today in Iraq, Baker Hughes is operating six rigs. In Russia it just drilled the two longest extended-reach wells ...