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Venture
Board of Directors
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Non-Executive
Chairman
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John
Morgan was appointed a Director of Venture on 7 September
1998. He worked for BP for over 30 years and held senior positions
in that company including Head of South East Asia Exploration Office,
North Sea Commercial Manager, General Manager North Sea Operations and
President BP Exploration (Alaska).
He is also a Director of John Wood Group PLC.
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Non-Executive
Deputy Chairman and Non-Executive Senior Independent Director
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Mark
Nicholls was appointed a Director of Venture on 15 January
2004. Having qualified as a Solicitor, he spent most of his career
with SG Warburg, becoming Head of Corporate Finance and a main board
Director of the SG Warburg Group. More recently his broad knowledge
of the financial market place was applied at the Royal Bank of Scotland
Group where he was Managing Director of the private equity group.
Currently he is Non-Executive Chairman of EcoSecurities Group plc and a
Non-Executive Director of Nationwide Building Society, Northern Investors
Company plc and Evolution Group plc.
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Mike Wagstaff
took over as Chief Executive in September 2004 having joined Venture as
Finance Director in June 1999 and he was appointed to the Board on 26
October 1999. He began his career with Shell as a Petroleum
Engineer based in various locations in Western
Europe. From 1988 to 1999, he was employed by
Schroders in its Corporate Finance department, based in London
and New
York, where he provided corporate
finance advice to a wide range of energy companies including Venture.
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Jonathan
Roger has 17
years' experience in the oil industry, joining Venture in 2003 following
a fast-track 12 years with Conoco and latterly ConocoPhillips in the
North Sea and Indonesia.
Jonathan combined a broad commercial and technical background with
technical experience in engineering, operations and projects, and
commercial and business experience including supply chain, strategy and
portfolio management, gas contracts and international government
negotiations. Jonathan led Venture's focused field rejuvenation,
appraisal and development programme for the southern North
Sea until late 2007, including Venture's expansion into the
Dutch sector following the acquisition of CH4. In late 2007, Jonathan's
role was expanded to cover all of Venture's producing business units in
the North Sea, with responsibility for
maximising the value of these business units through a combination of
production optimisation, exploration, appraisal, development and
acquisition activity.
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Peter Turner was
appointed to the Board on 6 December 2007 as Finance Director. He
was previously at The BOC Group plc, prior to its acquisition by Linde
AG, where he held a number of senior financial positions including
Director of Taxation and Treasury and Finance Director of the group's
largest division, Industrial and Special Products. Peter qualified
as a Chartered Accountant whilst working at PricewaterhouseCoopers and
has a degree in chemistry from Oxford
University.
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Corporate Development Director
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Rod Begbie
joined Venture in August 2002 and was appointed a Director on 19 June
2007. He has 16 years' experience in corporate finance and private
equity and spent the early part of his career as a management consultant,
before moving into a Group Corporate Strategy role at the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Latterly he was a Director of ING Barings pan-European private equity
business, a position that followed four years of successful investing as
an Assistant Director within the private equity arm of RBS. Having spent
his early life in Aberdeen,
he returned in 2002 after an MBA at INSEAD.
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Larry
Kinch is a founder of Venture and was appointed a Director on 1
November 1996. He is a Petroleum Engineer by profession and his
previous experience was with Schlumberger, Shell and BP as an
Engineer. In 1985, Larry co-founded Petroleum Engineering Services,
an Aberdeen
based oil field equipment and services company, which was acquired by
Halliburton Company in February 2000. He also established Energy
Development Partners, of which he is Chairman.
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Alan
Jones was appointed a Director of Venture on 28 April 2005.
In his 35 year career with BP he gained extensive experience, both
internationally and in the North Sea
major oil field developments and in operational management. He was
responsible for managing the successful $6 billion development of BP's
Cuisiana and Cupiagua fields in Colombia. Alan retired
from BP in 2000 after three years as regional President of BP in Scotland, during which time he was a
member of the Government task force examining the future of the UK
oil and gas industry.
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Tom
Ehret was appointed a Director of Venture on 16 March 2006.
He trained as a mechanical engineer and in his 30 year career has held a
variety of both technical and commercial positions in several leading
offshore engineering and construction companies. During this period
he has been instrumental in several industry shaping moves, including the
turnaround of the loss-making Stena Offshore, its acquisition of Santa Fe's pipelay
business and the merger between Stena Offshore and Coflexip, the leading
company at that time in the subsea sector. Following his success as
Chief Executive Officer of Stena Offshore (subsequently Coflexip-Stena
Offshore, (CSO)), Tom became Group Vice-Chairman and President of the
offshore branch of Technip following its acquisition of CSO. He was
latterly the Chief Executive Officer of Acergy SA, a leading offshore
contractor to the oil and gas industry, from March 2003 until his retirement
in April 2008. He continued as an Executive Board Member until 30
June 2008, at which time he became a Non-Executive Director. Tom is
also a Director of Dockwise and in May 2008 was appointed to the
Supervisory Board of SBM Offshore N.V., a Dutch public company.
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Robb Turner
Non-Executive
Director
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Robb Turner was
appointed a Director of Venture on 12 September 2007. He is a co-founder
of ArcLight Capital Partners and has 17 years of energy finance,
corporate finance, and public and private equity investment
experience. Prior to forming ArcLight in 2000, Robb founded and
built Berenson Minella & Company's energy advisory practice.
From 1990 to 1998, he held senior positions at Smith Barney, Schroders,
Wasserstein Perella and Kidder, and Peabody & Co. where he was
responsible for advising on buyouts, corporate finance structures, and
mergers and acquisitions. Robb earned a Bachelor of Science in
Engineering from the US Military Academy at West Point and a Master of
Business Administration from Harvard
Business School.
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Tom
Blades was appointed a Director of Venture on 16 March 2006.
A qualified Chartered Electrical Engineer, he spent most of his formative
years with Schlumberger, the majority of these in managerial positions
worldwide. Since then he has led Numar Corporation through its
rapid post-IPO growth and following its acquisition, briefly became
Executive Vice President of Halliburton. As President and Chief
Executive Officer of Spectro, a specialised manufacturer in the global
analytical instruments industry, he restructured the company and
implemented a programme of fundamental change. Tom
was the Chief Executive Officer of Choren Industries, a German technology
company, which he transformed to become the world leader in the
conversion of biomass to synthetic transport fuels for 5 years until 31
December 2008. He was appointed
as CEO of Siemens Energy Sectors Oil and Gas Division on 1 January 2009.
He is also a Director of Twister BV.
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Non-Executive Director
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Andrew
Carr-Locke was
appointed a Director of Venture on 3 March 2008. He was Finance Director
of George Wimpey PLC for six years until June 2007 when the company
merged with Taylor Woodrow. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of
Cost and Management Accountants, Andrew has extensive experience of
working at a senior level in a number of high profile roles. Before
joining George Wimpey he was Group Finance Director of Courtaulds
Textiles plc, prior to which he was European Finance Director at United
Distillers and Vintners. Andrew was also a Non-Executive Director
of the utility company AWG plc from 2003 until it was successfully sold
and delisted in 2007.
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Key Managers
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Iain
Bartholomew has 26 years experience in the oil and gas industry in
exploration, development, production and corporate planning. He has
worked for Shell, Oryx Energy, Hess and Pluspetrol and has spent half his
career overseas. His previous positions have included Vice
President Exploration and Geoscience for Pluspetrol based in Argentina,
Vice President Geoscience and Exploration Strategy for Hess, and
International Exploration Manager for Oryx Energy. Iain has been
involved in the discovery of over 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent
from a large number of basins around the world and has a PhD in
structural geology and an MBA. He joined Venture in 2007 and is
responsible for all subsurface activities in both Venture's current
assets and new business opportunities.
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Chris Bird
has 31 years project management experience with 22 years experience in
the oil and gas sector. He spent his early career in the process industry
in mechanical and chemical engineering and latterly was Managing Director
of Aker Kvaerner in the UK and Vice Chairman of the Offshore Contractors
Association. Chris joined Venture
in 2004 and is leading the field development programmes as well as the
supply chain management teams. Chris is a Chartered and European engineer
and a Fellow of The Institute of Mechanical engineers and Fellow of the
Association for Project Management and recently was the Chairman for the
North East Chapter of the Association of Project Management.
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Craig
McCallum joined Venture in
early 2006, following 16 years of experience with Conoco, Talisman Energy
and most recently as a Director of an independent commercial
consultancy. He has a broad range of technical and commercial
experience including Facilities Support, Well Testing, Reservoir
Engineering, Joint Venture Management and Commercial Management.
Whilst at Talisman he was responsible for all UK non-operated production on
assets such as Magnus, Wytch Farm and Brae. He subsequently became
the Commercial Manager for a number of operated assets. In 2001,
Craig became a Director of Fabian Ltd. In his role he was the
commercial lead for a number of contract negotiations for Venture, a
relationship which ultimately led to joining Venture as Commercial
Manager in 2006. Craig became Country Manager responsible for
Venture's operations in the Dutch Sector of the North Sea in March 2008
and is now located in Hoofddorp,
Netherlands.
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Paul de Leeuw
joined Venture as Commercial Manager in June 2008. He has worked in
the UK Oil and Gas industry for over 20 years in a variety of roles and
locations with a number of companies including Shell, Marathon Oil, Amoco
and BP. His broad business and commercial background includes
senior roles in joint venture management, negotiations, gas trading, business
development, planning, performance management and supply chain.
With a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Paul started his career
with Shell in 1987 as a Petroleum Engineer, before joining Marathon Oil
in 1990 as a Reservoir Engineer. In 1993 he was awarded an MBA and
then worked for Amoco in a number of commercial roles. Paul moved
to Aberdeen in 1998 to play a leading role
in the North Sea BP-Amoco merger team, before becoming a Commercial
Manager for BP in Aberdeen.
During his time with BP he held a number of senior commercial and supply
chain management roles. Paul was also actively involved with a
number of high profile oil and gas industry initiatives.
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