Track record

Independent power

Four decades of merchant and contracted generation, taken from development through financing, construction, operation and exit.

• 48 projects between 1973 and 2017, 22,708 MW in aggregate
• Gas-fired combined cycle, simple cycle and peaking plant, with coal, biomass, hydro, wind and solar alongside it
• More than 16 GW developed, financed, owned, operated and divested by a single principal
• Divestitures to Calpine, Duke Energy and NextEra, within more than $10 billion of acquisitions and disposals
• Independent power producers founded, and utility-scale plant commissioned across two continents

Oil, gas, LNG and extractives

Upstream and midstream development, and the fiscal engineering that makes a cross-border megaproject financeable.

• The financial and fiscal provisions of a $27 billion LNG development in Mozambique
• A $4.5 billion divestiture across Mozambique, South Africa and Ghana
• Exploration and systematic development of more than 500,000 acres of mineral interests
• Cumulative oil and gas acquisitions and divestitures exceeding $2.5 billion
• Tax and finance roles with international mining companies, and diligence across steel, copper and coal

Environmental regulation and permitting

Regulation seen from the other side of the desk, by people who have written and enforced the rules a project is judged against.

• Chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, 2007–2018, appointed by the Governor
• Service on US EPA Science Advisory Board committees and the USDA Agricultural Air Quality Task Force
• The Texas representative to the Good Neighbor Environmental Board for the US–Mexico border
• Permitting advocacy, enforcement mitigation and testimony before legislative and governmental bodies

Science and research

The conversion chemistry itself, held by a working academic laboratory rather than asserted by a vendor.

• Head of a university bio-energy testing and analysis laboratory
• More than 117 refereed articles on pyrolysis, gasification, air quality and waste management
• Two US patents in biofuel production and thermal conversion of biomass feedstock
• Two university textbooks on biomass and renewable energy conversion
• Commercial gasification systems built in Texas and Nebraska

Law and international transactions

Cross-border structuring, contracting and dispute work, carried on the executive team rather than bought by the hour.

• Senior Managing Counsel — International at a major independent oil company
• Partner, executive committee member and office managing partner at a global law firm
• Private equity and mergers and acquisitions practice, and litigation counsel at a supermajor
• A United States Court of Appeals clerkship; an adjunct professorship in international transactions

Tax, audit and corporate governance

The numbers checked to the standard a lender applies, and the reporting discipline a listed company answers to.

• More than 30 years of audit and transaction support at a Big Four firm across London, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine and the UAE
• A Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales; a Texas CPA; an LL.M. and a J.D.
• CFO, CAO and Controller roles across three private-equity-backed teams, each taken to a liquidity event by sale, IPO or merger
• Independent directorship of a listed company, chairing its nominating and corporate governance committee

Public-private partnerships and government

Moving infrastructure through a public process — the part of a project that is decided in a hearing room rather than on site.

• Approximately $9 billion of public-private partnership transactions in Puerto Rico between 2019 and 2024
• The transformation of one of the largest public utilities in the United States
• Concessions for a maritime transportation system and for cruise terminals
• Economic development and tourism for the Office of the Governor of Texas
• A state grid-resilience program that held supply through the 2021 ice storm while larger utilities failed

Digital systems, controls and automation

The energy facility treated as an instrumented system, by people who built enterprise computing before they built energy infrastructure.

• Vice President and Chief Technologist for a global manufacturer's commercial and server software divisions
• More than 48 US patents in computer hardware and software design
• System integration, controls and fabrication of mission-critical equipment
• Edge-to-cloud automation across a distributed asset portfolio

Commodity and power trading

Where the output is actually sold, and the market infrastructure it is sold through.

• Executive VP for gas and electric software markets at a global trading-systems provider
• Trading applications carrying 15% of all North American natural gas trades
• The first electricity trading deployments for deregulation in CAISO, ERCOT and PJM
• Advisory work on the privatization of Italy's natural gas sector, and for major European pipeline operators

Asset management and operations

Running a fleet once it is built, to the reliability and contract-compliance standard an owner is held to.

• Vice President of North America Operations for an investment bank's generation fleet
• Transition of that fleet to multiple buyers following a $3.5 billion asset sale
• Shadow settlement systems and risk management tools built for landfill gas plants
• Reliability, maintainability and efficiency programs across complex industrial projects

Communications, community and Latin American markets

The standing a project needs in the place it is built — with regulators, with media, and with the people who live next to it.

• Practice leadership at two of the largest global public relations firms, and executive media coaching for chief executives
• Merger and acquisition communications for a global bank's entry into the United States
• The public engagement strategy behind a major Texas highway launch
• Two decades in hospitality and ten years in oil trading across the Dominican Republic, Spain and wider Latin America
• Director-level community and inclusion leadership at a major United States sports league