What Great Leadership Looks Like in a Startup: Celebrating Prabhdeep Singh Sekhon
There are certain moments in a company’s journey that make you pause and appreciate what we are building. For me, seeing our CEO, Prabhdeep Singh Sekhon, recognized as a Houston Business Journal Most Admired CEO is one of those moments.
Prab excels at leading through uncertainty while giving his team the trust and space to take ownership, make decisions, and grow. Perhaps most importantly, he continues to believe in what we are building, even when the reality of a startup means moving into uncharted spaces.
For those of us at Eclipse, that kind of leadership has made all the difference.
Building Something From the Ground Up
Working at a startup has its pros and cons. There are exciting milestones and moments when you can see an idea becoming something real. But there are also long days, changing priorities, unexpected challenges, and decisions that have to be made without a clear roadmap.
At Eclipse, we have experienced all of that.
We are creating something that sits at the intersection of science, energy, engineering, and entrepreneurship. Our work is ambitious by design: transforming end-of-life oil reservoirs into productive clean energy assets through subsurface biotechnology. This mission requires a team that can adapt and stay committed to the bigger picture while understanding the details that lead to success. Prab has been instrumental in creating that environment.
He has a way of taking a complex or uncertain situation and bringing the conversation back to what matters: What are we trying to accomplish? What does the team need? What is the next step? That clarity is incredibly valuable when you are building a company from the ground up.
Leading Through Uncertainty
Prab does not pretend that building a company is easy. Instead, he embraces the uncertainty that comes with it. Over the past few years, Eclipse has moved from proving our technology to growing our commercial execution. We have completed groundbreaking field work and developed partnerships that are helping move our technology toward larger-scale deployment.
Those milestones are exciting, but they also come with an entirely new set of challenges.
As our CEO, Prab has consistently encouraged the team to approach those challenges with curiosity rather than fear. He brainstorms with the team, encourages us to challenge assumptions, and brings forward ideas for group evaluation even when there is no obvious answer.
That trust matters because it allows the team to operate with confidence while still being willing to change course when circumstances require it.
Creating Space for People to Grow
Great leadership is not just about making the best decisions. It is about helping other people become better at making decisions, too.
That is something I have experienced firsthand working with Prab. He has given me opportunities to take ownership, make difficult decisions, and grow alongside the company. He has trusted me not simply to execute a plan, but to help shape how we operate and how we continue to build the organization.
That same philosophy extends across the Eclipse team.
We have people from different backgrounds, disciplines, and areas of expertise working together toward the same mission. Our work requires geoscience, engineering, microbiology, business development, operations, and countless other perspectives.
Prab understands that the strength of Eclipse does not come from any one person but from creating an environment where talented people can bring their diverse expertise to the table, challenge one another, learn from one another, and work together toward something bigger than themselves.
A Moment I’ll Always Remember
Earlier, I mentioned that Prab encourages the team to challenge assumptions. That philosophy extends to his own actions and decisions, something rare in a leader and even more rare in a CEO. Prab and I worked together at a previous company where we built the foundation of open, honest communication. At Eclipse, that transparency and frankness has become more important, not less. I have watched Prab grow as a leader while maintaining the humility that many leaders lose along the path to success, especially in a groundbreaking company like Eclipse.
That is why I am so happy to see him recognized as one of Houston’s Most Admired CEO’s.
For me, the award is not simply recognition of what the team and Prab have accomplished at Eclipse Energy. It is recognition of the kind of leader he has chosen to be along the way and how successful a team he has been able to assemble because of that choice.
I am grateful to have had a front-row seat to this journey, and even more grateful to be part of the team helping build what comes next. Congratulations, Prab. This recognition is well deserved.
Brittany Pitlik(opens in new tab) is VP of Operations at Eclipse Energy, where she leads strategic execution, cross-functional initiatives, and organizational growth as the company advances subsurface biotechnology toward global deployment.
She brings more than a decade of energy-sector experience, including eight years at NextEra Energy Resources, where she managed P&L across multiple assets and helped scale a multi-billion-dollar Haynesville development program.
Brittany was named one of Poets&Quants’ 2025 Best & Brightest MBAs and the 2025 Outstanding Graduate of the University of Wisconsin MBA Consortium. She is passionate about building high-performing teams and turning breakthrough science into practical, scalable energy solutions.