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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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Jon Murphy joined Venture in March 1999 and was appointed a Director on
16 August 1999. He is a geologist by profession and, prior to
joining Venture, he spent over ten years with LASMO. His positions
within LASMO included Chief Geologist in Indonesia
and New Business Manager in Pakistan. Prior to
joining LASMO, he served in several senior technical positions for Conoco, Texas
Eastern and Thomson North Sea.
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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. For the past three
years Tom has been Chief Executive Officer of Choren Industries, a German
technology company, which he has transformed to become the world leader
in the conversion of biomass to synthetic transport fuels. He is
also a director of Twister
BV.
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Non-Executive Director
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Graeme
Sword was appointed a Director of Venture on
24 October 2007 and is a Partner with 3i as well as Head of 3i's Oil, Gas
& Power business unit. He started his career in brand management with
Unilever before joining 3i in 1995. Graeme was appointed a Partner
with 3i in 2001 and took up his current position in 2002. In his
career he has led a number of high profile transactions in the
exploration and production and oil service sectors including Petrofac,
Vetco, Dockwise and Delta Hydrocarbons. Graeme also serves on the
Boards of Energy Development Partners and Delta Hydrocarbons.
Graeme holds an MA from the University
of Dundee.
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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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Jonathan Roger has 17 years experience in
the oil industry joining Venture in late 2003 following a fast-track 12
years with Conoco and latterly ConocoPhillips. Jonathan joined with a
broad commercial and technical background with technical experience in
engineering, operations and projects including latterly his role as the
Engineering and Maintenance Manager for Britannia Operator Limited. His
commercial and business experience has included supply chain, strategy
and portfolio management, and 3 years in Indonesia setting up the West
Natuna Gas Project. This included the development of 10 fields and Indonesia's
first ever cross border gas sale. 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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Mike Travis has 24 years experience in the oil industry including 7
years with BP, 12 years with LASMO and 5 years with Venture. He is
a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge,
is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and has an MBA in Project Management
from Henley
Management College. The majority of his
career has been spent overseas in a wide variety of disciplines including
Well Operations, Field Development, Production and Operations. He
has worked in Brazil,
the Netherlands, Colombia, Venezuela,
Vietnam and Italy.
His track record includes heading teams which have delivered
industry-leading performance and the re-development of brownfield oil
fields, for example the Dacion Field in Venezuela. Mike joined
Venture in 2001 in Trinidad to manage
Venture's Trinidadian assets. He is now responsible for moving more
of Venture's stranded North Sea oil into
production.
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Iain Bartholomew has 25 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 30 years
project management experience with 20 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. He has
successfully run projects with BP, BG, Marathon,
Shell, Total and Amoco as well as the last 3.5 years within Venture.
Latterly, Chris has run organisational change projects within operator
and contractor environments. Chris joined Venture in 2004 and is leading
the field management development programmes.
Chris is responsible for the IT, IS and IM functions within the company. He is a European and Chartered Engineer and is a
Fellow of both the Institute
of Mechanical Engineers
and Association for 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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