Board of Directors
Chris Wright, Chairman
Chris was Senior Vice President, Global Exploration and Technology, for Unocal, based in Houston. Before joining Unocal he was Director, New Business and then Chief Operating Officer for LASMO plc in London. Prior to this, he led the Asia-Pacific and Middle East new business development efforts for the Mobil Oil Corporation, based out of Dallas and London. The major part of his career was with British Petroleum plc where he spent more than 20 years in various technical and managerial roles of increasing seniority, in locations both in the US and the UK. His final position with BP was Chief Executive, Frontier and International, which he held from 1991–1995.
Mark McAllister, Chief Executive Officer
Mark was a founder of Acorn Oil & Gas and served as Acorn’s Managing Director from its inception until the launch of Fairfield in November 2005. He had previously been a member of the senior management team at LASMO plc and was Managing Director, Europe and North Africa, at the time of the acquisition of LASMO by Eni in 2001. Previously Mark had been on the executive team at Monument Exploration where he was Director of Operations. Mark is a petroleum engineer by discipline and began his North Sea career in 1979 at Conoco. He has worked for a number of companies, large and small, mainly in the North Sea but also in the Former Soviet Union and North Africa.
Iain Macdonald, Chief Financial Officer
Iain Macdonald is Fairfield’s Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining Fairfield, Iain spent his entire career at BP. He held a number of technical, commercial and managerial posts in the Exploration and Chemicals divisions including Chief Executive Acetyls and VP Strategy and Development for Chemicals. His last ten years were spent at the Group level, initially running planning and performance management before taking on the Group Controller role. He recently retired from Deputy to the Group FD. Iain has a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the University College London.
Ron Emerson, Senior Independent Director
Ron Emerson has worked in industry and banking, but the bulk of his full time career was spent in international banking. He has held a number of senior management positions with Bank of America, Nomura Bank International and Standard Chartered Bank, where he was a member of the group management committee and Group Head of Corporate Banking. Since 1996 he has divided his time between non-executive directorships, business advisory work and being an active member of the Faculty of Management Studies at Oxford University. As a non executive he has served on the board of Premier Oil plc, where he was Chair of the Audit Committee, ACE European Group Ltd, the European arm of the ACE Group of companies, listed in New York, which is one of the world’s largest providers of property and casualty insurance, where he also chairs the Audit Committee, and House of Habib, a privately owned conglomerate with operations ranging across auto manufacture, retail and banking. He has also been a Senior Advisor at the Bank of England and the FSA. At Oxford, where he is an Associate Fellow at The Said Business School and Green Templeton College, he is involved in designing and delivering executive development programmes for senior management, including boards, in the area of leadership and strategic change. One of these programmes with a FTSE top 20 company has been running for 10 years. He holds degrees from Manchester, Durham and Oxford universities.
Peter Kagan, Non-Executive Director
Peter R. Kagan is a partner of Warburg Pincus & Co. and a Managing Director of Warburg Pincus LLC and has been with the firm since 1997. Currently, he co-leads the firm’s investment activities in energy and natural resources and is a member of the Executive Management Group. Mr. Kagan received an A.B. degree cum laude from Harvard College and J.D. and M.B.A. degrees with honors from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining Warburg Pincus, he worked in investment banking at Salomon Brothers in both New York and Hong Kong. Mr. Kagan is currently on the Board of Directors of Antero Resources, Broad Oak Energy, Fairfield Energy, Laredo Petroleum, MEG Energy, Targa Resources and Targa Resources Partners L.P. In addition, he is a member of the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Law School, and a member of the Board of Directors of Resources for the Future. Peter holds an A.B., cum laude, from Harvard College and J.D. and M.B.A. degrees with honours from the University of Chicago.
Andrew Paterson, Non-Executive Director
Andrew Paterson’s early career was as a drilling engineer with Conoco UK Ltd, Charterhouse Petroleum and Petrofina before taking Consultant Drilling Supervisor/Superintendent positions with Conoco UK Ltd., Enterprise Oil Vietnam and Enterprise Oil UK. In 1996 he founded and was CEO of the Peak Group which comprised three business units Peak Well Management, Peak Consultancy Services and Peak Performance. PWM provided a fully integrated service delivering wells for clients, PCS provided well engineering consultants to the oil and gas industry while PP designed, built and maintained market leading software for well engineering, the most well known being the probabilistic package P1. The company was sold to AGR in 2006. Andrew has been a member of the Fairfield Energy Board since December 2008. Andrew has a BSc Hons (1980) in Naval Architecture from the University of Strathclyde.
Mark Hope, Non-Executive Director
After petroleum engineering assignments with Conoco and Tricentrol, Mark Hope joined Enterprise Oil plc soon after its formation in 1984. Over the next few years he held several management roles, including Petroleum Engineering Manager and Project Development Manager for Nelson. In 1992 he became General Manager in Aberdeen and, in 1996, Enterprise Oil’s UK Director. From 1997 until May 1999 he was Technical Director for Enterprise Oil, responsible for drilling, production and development activities worldwide. Mark joined Shell Expro in Aberdeen in August 1999 as HSE and External Affairs Director. He moved to a part-time advisory post with Shell in September 2002 (as Special Advisor for Shell
Exploration & Production in Europe), a post he held until 2008. Mark graduated with a B.Sc (Eng) in Mining Engineering from the Royal School of Mines in London in 1975. He also has an M.Sc in Petroleum Engineering from Imperial College (1976) and an M.Sc in Management from the London Business School (1991).
David Pearce, Non-Executive Director
During his 33 years in the oil and gas sector, Dave has worked in major and independent oil and gas firms. His experience has included technical and managerial roles as a senior executive responsible for exploration and production operations, Mergers and Acquisitions in Western Canada and South America as well as Independent Director in Canada and the UK. Dave began his career at Dome Petroleum and progressed through a series of technical and leadership positions in production and development working on properties throughout British Colombia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Next at Amoco Canada, he served in roles as a senior manager responsible for managing operations as well as business development where he completed the largest property exchange in Western Canada between Amoco Canada and Encor. Dave then became Vice President Corporate Development at Fletcher Challenge Canada where he was responsible for Canadian acquisitions, South American business development, reserves and the Finance department. Most recently, Dave was President and CEO of Northrock Resources (previously an operating division of Unocal), an intermediate Canadian exploration and production company. Under Dave’s leadership, Northrock delivered superior finding, development and operating cost performance under a wide range of industry conditions. Since leaving Northrock Dave works as an oil and gas consultant and currently provides advice to KERN Partners as an Industry Executive Advisor. Dave holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (Honours). He has served as a Governor of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (‘‘CAPP’’) and chaired the Northern Canada Executive Policy Group. Currently, Dave is a Director of Cutpick Energy Limited and Executive Chairman of All Points Energy Limited.
Simon Neathercoat, Non-Executive Director
Having qualified as a chartered accountant, Simon spent most of his career in investment banking with Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Hoare Govett advising companies and boards of directors. He has an in-depth knowledge of City practices and Corporate Governance. Since 2001, he has held a number of non-executive appointments acting in the capacity of Chairman, Senior Independent Director and Chairman of Audit and Remuneration Committees. He is currently Non-Executive Chairman of Lombard Medical Technologies plc and a Non-Executive Director of Derwent London plc where he is Chairman of the Audit Committee.
Howard Mayson, Non-Executive Director
Having started with Schlumberger as a field engineer in 1977, Howard joined BP in 1981 where he spent the rest of his career. After a number of reservoir management, field development and commercial/business assignments in BP America, Howard was made Director of BP’s E & P Technology Group in 1997. He then moved to President and Business Unit Leader BP Angola followed by Chief Executive and Business Unit Leader BP Russia. For the last ten years before retirement in 2010 Howard was Senior Vice President Technology for BP Exploration & Production, responsible for creating, defining and delivering BP’s subsurface and wells functional agenda, directing the R&D programs and approving BP’s hydrocarbon resources. Howard has a B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering (1973) from the University of Sheffield and an M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering (1976) from MIT. He was made an Honorary Doctor of Engineering at Heriot-Watt University.
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