Our leadership have a wealth of experience in upstream offshore oil and gas exploration and production.
Russell Alton
Chief Executive Officer
Russell is an experienced leader with a diverse background, including roles in corporates, investment banking, management consulting and accountancy. Prior to NEO, Russell spent six years at Equinor, where he initially joined as Head of M&A and most recently was Head of Finance. Russell was closely involved in managing Equinor’s business, delivering its growth agenda and in supporting Equinor’s digital and innovation activities. Before Equinor, Russell spent six years as Group Head of M&A at Centrica, where he originated and executed over £9 billion of transactions, including building Centrica’s E&P business. Earlier in his career, Russell spent 12 years in investment banking and management consulting with Merrill Lynch, McKinsey, Morgan Stanley and HSBC, gaining broad experience in strategy, organisation, cross-product financing and M&A.
Russell qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young and holds a first-class degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.
Paul Harris
Chief Operating Officer
Paul has over 20 years’ business leadership experience within the energy industry in UK domestic and international locations. He is the former President of Nexen US Gulf of Mexico and Vice President of Nexen ULC. Prior to this Paul served as Major Development Director for Nexen UK Limited where he was responsible for the delivery of the Golden Eagle development as well as holding senior leadership roles for both the Buzzard and Buzzard Enhancement Projects. In a career spanning 30 years Paul has held a number of roles in project leadership and project execution within independent oil companies as well as EPC contractors and consulting organisations.
Paul has an honours degree in Chemical Engineering, is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and member of both the Association of Project Management and the Institute of Directors.
Robert Adams
Chief Financial Officer
Robert joined NEO in January 2020 after 13 years at Equinor (previously Statoil) where he held various senior leadership roles in finance, business development and strategy including Senior Vice President for Finance globally and Managing Director in the UK. Before joining Statoil in 2006, he worked in oil and gas investment banking for 14 years for Chase Manhattan Bank, UBS, Citigroup and Renaissance Capital in London, New York and Moscow. He has also worked for OXERA energy consultancy, Conoco and in energy venture capital.
Robert holds a degree in Politics, Philosophy & Economics from Oxford University.
Catherine Heritage
Chief People Officer
Catherine joined NEO in 2020, bringing more than 20 years of international experience in HR, leadership, organisational change & development and talent & capability development. Catherine, who has spent almost 10 years in the energy sector, has worked with Centrica, where she was Director of Talent, and with Equinor where she led People & Leadership Development for the Global Strategy and Business Development division. Catherine has also held senior HR roles with Ricardo and Microsoft.
Catherine is an executive coach, a chartered fellow of the CIPD and holds a degree from the University of Reading and the University of Cologne.
Andrew McIntosh
General Counsel and Commercial Director
Andy is a dual qualified lawyer (English/Scots Law) with over 20 years’ in-house upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas experience. Andy has held several senior leadership positions and has considerable transactional, operational and project experience gained working with Kerr-McGee, Maersk Oil, ConocoPhillips and EnQuest PLC. Prior to joining NEO, Andy was General Counsel for Verus Petroleum, another HitecVision backed entity, having worked for them since early 2015 and played an integral role in growing its portfolio. He spent the early part of his career in private practise prior to moving in-house.
Bob Gray
Business Development Director
Bob has more than 35 years’ experience in oil and gas investment banking and E&P private equity. He started his career in the North Sea with Conoco and Hess. He then spent over 20 years in a variety of roles with leading investment banks including Chase Investment Bank, UBS and Citigroup in London and Rothschild in New York. In the mid 2000’s he was an investment principal at a Boston based PE investor focusing on investment in the UKCS.
Bob holds a degree in Petroleum Economics and an MSc in Petroleum Geoscience.
Our Board is a group of highly experienced industry professionals. The Board is accountable for our long-term success.
Martin Bachmann
Chairman
Martin is a Swiss national with a background in geophysics from ETH Zurich with extensive international oil and gas industry experience. Previously he has been a member of Wintershall’s Board of Executive Directors for 10 years in charge of Exploration & Production. His responsibilities included Wintershall’s production companies in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Argentina, and Libya. He had spent the first 26 years of his career with Shell in increasingly senior upstream and commercial positions, taking him to The Netherlands, the UK, Spain, Turkey, Russia and Syria.
David Gair
Director
David possesses a petroleum engineering background and held a number of operational leadership roles prior his 10 years’ as Executive Vice President for BP’s Upstream M&A to 2008. During this period, he led BP’s acquisitions of Amoco, Arco and Veba Oel and over $20bn of disposals that followed these transactions. He joined Royal Bank of Canada as Senior Advisor to their global upstream business, and during his nine-year tenure advised on numerous transactions in the UK, Canada and the US. He has previously served on the boards of Interconnector UK, Star Energy and Noreco.
Einar Gjelsvik
Director
Einar is a Senior Partner at HitecVision, joining in 2014 from the position as interim CEO in Verus Petroleum. Einar has extensive experience within the offshore oil and gas industry, having worked for Norwegian Energy Company ASA (Noreco) and BP. He worked eight years with Noreco in various senior leadership roles and latest as CEO.
Einar holds a MSc in Business Administration and Strategic Management, and a MSc in Chemical Engineering and is a CFA charter holder.
Fiona Hill CBE
Director
Fiona owns and runs FMH Strategy, a consultancy that offers strategy, policy, reputation and crisis management advice. Prior to this she was the first female Chief-of-Staff in the UK, serving under Prime Minister Theresa May. She also advised May as Home Secretary at the Home Office and is responsible for the Modern Slavery Act and the Domestic Violence and Abuse Act. During her six-year term in government she focused on security and foreign policy. Fiona is the author of a report ‘A Modern Response to Modern Slavery’ which was published while she was Associate Director of the Think Tank, Centre for Social Justice. The report has been used as an evidence base for policy makers all over the world in combatting Human Trafficking. Before entering political life, she was a journalist working in broadcast media as News Editor for Sky News and in print media as a writer for the Scotsman Newspaper and the Daily Record.
Nick Hooke
Director
Nick is an oil and gas executive with over 35 years’ experience gained in the UK and internationally with major operators and in advisory roles. He is a chartered Petroleum Engineer, a Fellow of the Energy Institute and holds an MSc in Petroleum Engineering from Imperial College, London. His experience covers all aspects of the upstream oil and gas industry, including technical, operational, commercial, financial and management roles. Nick was a founder of Challenge Energy, one of the UK’s leading oil and gas advisory companies, which he grew over 20 years before selling the business.
John Knight
Director
John is a Senior Partner at HitecVision having joined from the position as Executive Vice President, Global Strategy & Business Development at Equinor. During his 16 year career at Equinor, he has held several central managerial positions in International Operations, mainly in business development. Between 1987 and 2002, John held various positions in energy investment banking. From 1977 to 1985, he qualified and then worked as a barrister/lawyer, after which he worked for Shell Petroleum in London from 1985-1987.
John has first and post-graduate degrees in law from Cambridge University and the Inns of Court School of Law in London.
Grethe Moen
Director
Grethe has a career spanning more than 30 years in the oil and gas industry. She graduated as a chemical engineer from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, and spent the first 25 years of her career with Statoil; holding senior management roles in gas sales and marketing, production, downstream, technology and projects. In 2007 Grethe joined Shell, initially as Commercial Manager Upstream, Europe, before becoming VP Corporate Support, Upstream Europe. In 2009 she was appointed Upstream Director of Shell E&P in Norway, in addition to her position as VP HSE & Sustainable Development, Europe. Grethe joined Petoro in 2011 as VP Mature Fields and was appointed as President & CEO in 2013.