Board of Directors
The Board Comprises:
Sir Michael Oliver - Non-Executive Chairman.
Sir Michael Oliver is a director of a number of investment funds, including chairmanship of a specialised Central and Eastern European fund. He was previously Director, Investment Funds at Hill Samuel Asset Management and Scottish Widows Investment Partnership Limited. He was a partner in stockbrokers, Kitcat & Aitken, for many years and subsequently managing director of Carr Kitcat and Aitken between 1990 and 1993.
Paul Barrett - Managing Director.
Paul Barrett graduated from Durham University with a BSc in geology and Imperial College London with an MSc in petroleum geology. He started his career with Phillips Petroleum Company where he worked on North Sea acreage as an exploration geologist gaining broad experience of all exploration methods. He then worked for Britoil on North Sea acreage and in the Worldwide Basin Group, West Africa division, on a project to identify future hydrocarbon provinces. He then gained valuable experience in engineering whilst working as a development geologist on North Sea oil and gas fields for Ranger Oil. He became a consultant geologist in 1990 and had long term client relationships with Kerr McGee and Statoil. He recognised emerging opportunities in Central Europe in the mid-1990s and founded Europa with Dr. Erika Syba.
Phil Greenhalgh - Finance Director.
Phil Greenhalgh graduated from Imperial College with a BEng in chemical engineering and subsequently became a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. He began his financial career as Financial Controller with Kelco International, a subsidiary of Merck & Co. He moved to Monsanto plc where he was Finance Director for UK, Eire and Western Sector before becoming Finance Director with Pharmacia Ltd, a UK subsidiary company of Pharmacia formed from the merger of Monsanto and Pharmacia & Upjohn with sales of £276m. He moved to Whatman plc, a FTSE 250 company, where he had extensive dealings with the City of London, lead the financing of a €50m company acquisition and oversaw a substantial share price recovery.
Erika Syba- Operations Director.
Erika Syba graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a BSc in geology and the University of Glasgow with a PhD in geology. Her degree was focused on sedimentology and she started her career as a sedimentologist on North Sea reservoirs. She became a consultant geologist in 1990 with a long term contract with Kerr McGee. She worked on North Sea exploration acreage, including regional evaluations and successful licence round applications, before working as a development geologist, closely associated with the engineering department, on the development of the Janice Field, which came onstream in 2000. She co-founded Europa and has been involved in the day-to-day running of the Group and its assets since 1999.
William Ahlefeldt - Non-Executive Director.
William Ahlefeldt, received an MSc in Civil Engineering from the Danish Technical University in 1981. Following national service, he worked for Maersk as a petroleum engineer followed, in 1987, by IPEC, a London based consultancy company, where he was responsible for field reserves estimations. In 1990, he became an independent consultant, undertaking field and portfolio evaluations for acquisitions and field development work on a range of projects in the North Sea, former Soviet Union and Middle East. In parallel he co-founded IFX Infoforex Limited, a company supplying real-time financial markets information to the financial and investment sector. This company was successfully sold in early 2000, at a time when it operated in more than 12 countries worldwide. In addition to fulfilling a non-executive advisory role, he provides petroleum engineering consultancy services to the Group.
Roderick Corrie - Non-Executive Director.
Roderick is a graduate of Cambridge University, an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Banking and a Member of the Securities Institute. He is a strategic adviser and financier with a variety of companies. Holds or has held executive or non-executive roles in corporate finance, strategic advice, financial services, health, property, mineral exploration, investment and manufacturing companies. Previously held senior positions in the banking industry.