Pierce Norton

President and Chief Executive Officer ONEOK

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Pierce H. Norton II is President and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc., the Tulsa-headquartered midstream energy company, and a member of its board of directors. A mechanical engineer who entered the gas pipeline business in 1982, he has spent his career on the physical side of energy - gathering, processing, transporting and distributing natural gas and natural gas liquids - and rose through ONEOK’s operating and commercial ranks before spending seven years running ONE Gas, the utility ONEOK spun off in 2014. He returned to lead the parent company in June 2021, and the five years since have brought the largest expansion in ONEOK’s history, from the acquisition of Magellan Midstream Partners through the absorption of EnLink Midstream and Medallion Midstream. He is not board chair; ONEOK separates that role.

Career Highlights

• Became President and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. on June 28, 2021, and serves as a director of the company.
• Completed the acquisition of Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. on September 25, 2023, a cash-and-stock transaction that took ONEOK into refined products and crude oil transportation for the first time.
• Acquired a controlling interest in EnLink Midstream from Global Infrastructure Partners in October 2024 and bought in EnLink’s remaining public units on January 31, 2025.
• Acquired Medallion Midstream in October 2024 and a roughly $280 million Gulf Coast NGL pipeline system from Easton Energy in June 2024, while divesting ONEOK’s interstate natural gas pipelines at the end of 2024.
• Served as ONE Gas, Inc.’s first president and chief executive officer from its January 2014 spin-off until 2021, and as a director of ONE Gas over the same period.
• Chaired the board of directors of the American Gas Association in 2017.

Professional Journey

Norton earned a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the University of Alabama in 1982 and went straight into the pipeline business that year at Delhi Gas Pipeline. He moved on to American Oil and Gas, where he carried operational responsibility for natural gas gathering, processing and both interstate and intrastate pipelines, and then to KN Energy as Vice President and General Manager of the Heartland Region. At Bear Paw Energy he served as Vice President of Business Development before being named President in 2002; the business is now part of ONEOK’s Rockies midstream operations, and he also worked with Northern Border Partners in this period.

He joined ONEOK proper in 2004 and spent the next decade moving between its operating and commercial organisations - President of the natural gas distribution companies Oklahoma Natural Gas, Kansas Gas Service and Texas Gas Service; Executive Vice President, Commercial; and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, with responsibility spanning gathering and processing, pipelines, natural gas liquids, distribution and energy services.

In January 2014 ONEOK separated its regulated utility business into a standalone listed company, ONE Gas, and Norton became its first president and chief executive officer. He held the post for more than seven years, running a rate-regulated utility serving Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas - a very different business from the commodity-exposed midstream operation he had come from, and one that gave him a full cycle of experience with regulators and residential customers.

ONEOK brought him back as President and Chief Executive Officer on June 28, 2021. What followed was a rapid consolidation of the midstream sector on ONEOK’s terms. The Magellan Midstream Partners acquisition closed on September 25, 2023, adding refined products and crude oil systems to a company that had been principally a natural gas and NGL business. In 2024 ONEOK bought a Gulf Coast NGL pipeline network from Easton Energy, took a controlling interest in EnLink Midstream from Global Infrastructure Partners, acquired Medallion Midstream, and sold its interstate natural gas pipelines; the EnLink buy-in completed on January 31, 2025. He continues to sign ONEOK’s annual report as its principal executive officer.

Outside the company, Norton sits on the board of the American Petroleum Institute, having previously chaired the American Gas Association and served with the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, the Texas Pipeline Association and the North Dakota Petroleum Council. His civic commitments are concentrated in Tulsa.

Education

The University of Alabama

Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering, 1982