R. A. Walker
Chairman, President and C.E.O.
Anadarko

Al Walker is Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. He joined Anadarko in 2005 as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, later serving as President and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining Anadarko, he worked in the oil and natural gas industry, investment and commercial banking, and as an institutional investor. Mr. Walker is a director of BOK Financial Corporation, serving as Chairman of the Risk Committee (NASDAQ: BOKF). He is a director of the Houston Branch of the Dallas Federal Reserve, Trustee for the Houston Museum of Natural Science, a member of the Business Council (Executive Committee), Business Roundtable, All-American Wildcatters (Chairman 2017 and 2018), and on the Board of Directors of the American Petroleum Institute (Executive and Finance Committees).

Marc Davidson
Senior Director of Technology, Production Enhancement
Halliburton

Marc Davidson is Sr. Director of Technology for Halliburton’s Production Enhancement, Cementing and Multi-Chem product service lines. His responsibilities include overseeing the development of Halliburton’s new products and services for well cementing, stimulation, production chemicals and related technologies. Dr. Davidson has 29 years’ experience in technology, manufacturing and supply chain in a range of industries. At Halliburton for the past five years, he has served as Sr. Director of Technology for the Drill Bits and Services, Well Cementing, and Production Enhancement product service lines.  Prior to joining Halliburton, he was Executive Vice President of Technology and Operations for Diamond Innovations Inc., a subsidiary of Sandvik AB.  Earlier in his career, Dr. Davidson held technology leadership roles in General Electric’s Specialty Materials and Plastics divisions, and conducted petroleum refining research and development work at Amoco Oil Company. Dr. Davidson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University, as well as a Master of Science degree and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  

  Jerry Tardivo
Business Planning and Development Manager
Chevron 

Jerry Tardivo Alcoser currently serves as Manager of Business Planning and Development for Chevron’s Deepwater Exploration and Projects Strategic Business Unit. She assumed this position in 2014 and is responsible for the development of the deepwater business and strategic plans, optimizing deepwater Gulf of Mexico capital investments, and corporate reporting. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jerry began her career with Chevron in 2002 after graduating with a degree in Petroleum Engineering from Marietta College in Ohio. Jerry has held a variety of leadership positions throughout her career, including Drilling and Completions Engineering Manager for the Mid-Continent U.S. Business Unit; Advisor to the Vice President of Drilling and Completions, Performance Engineer and Drilling Engineer in Angola, West Africa; and Drilling Engineer and Rig site Manager in the Gulf of Mexico Shelf.

Connie L. Bargas
Vice President, Chief Reservoir Engineer
Cobalt International Energy

Connie is Vice President, Chief Reservoir Engineer for Cobalt International Energy, Inc. She previously served as Subsurface Manager for the Angola Cameia development project and worked as a reservoir engineer supporting exploration, appraisal and development activities in Angola and deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Prior to joining Cobalt in 2008, she held numerous reservoir engineering positions at Amoco and BP including reservoir engineering advisor, reserves coordinator, and lead reservoir engineer on the deepwater Gulf of Mexico NaKika and Atlantis development projects. She was also lead reservoir engineer on the Bairoil CO2 project, Amoco’s first CO2 injection project in the Rocky Mountains, and the Anschutz Ranch East gas condensate field, which at the time, was Amoco’s largest gas condensate field. Ms. Bargas was a participating author of the first SPE sponsored guidance document on Worst Case Discharge and has authored or co-authored nine external publications. She has over 35 years of oil and gas experience and received B.S. degrees in Petroleum Engineering and Chemistry from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

Barbara Bergersen
President and General Manager, Oxy Permian EOR
Occidental Petroleum Corporation

Barbara Bergersen is President and General Manager of Permian EOR at Occidental Petroleum Corporation, an international oil and gas exploration and production company, and one of the largest U.S. oil and gas companies based on equity market capitalization. Ms. Bergersen oversees Occidental’s business unit which utilizes enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques such as carbon dioxide (CO2) flooding and waterfloods. Permian EOR has 31 active floods and is an industry leader in applying this technology. Permian EOR production averages 145,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Previously, Ms. Bergersen was Manager of Asset Development for Permian EOR. She has also served as the business unit’s Operations Development Manager and Reservoir Management Team Leader for CO2 and waterfloods. Before joining Occidental in 2000 as part of the acquisition of Altura Energy, Ms. Bergersen worked in production operation research at Shell Development and was a reservoir and production engineer for offshore Gulf of Mexico, California and Permian properties. Ms. Bergersen holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Houston. 

Maria O'Connell
Vice President of Quality
Baker Hughes

Maria O’Connell has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in thermal and fluid systems and is a Six Sigma Black Belt. She began her career in engineering at Ford Motor Company where she worked as an aerodynamic engineer, a rotation through Ford NASCAR, and assignments in climate control new product engineering. Maria transitioned to Oil and Gas at Baker Hughes in 2007 in the Sand Control product line performing computational fluid dynamic simulation in erosion modeling and erosion reduction. She transitioned to management with a Type 1 research group then through various leadership roles in Products and Technology, Operation in North America Assembly, Maintenance, and Overhaul to her current assignment as Vice President of Quality. Maria has five patents, two SPE publications, and three SAE publications.

Kristine K. Sullivan
Upstream IT Manager
ExxonMobil

Kristine received her undergraduate degree in Business Administration at Villanova University in 1986. That same year, she began her career with Mobil Corporation as a Stock Analyst in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Over the course of her career, Kristine has held various business and technology positions first with Mobil Corporation and then with ExxonMobil. She worked at facilities in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas in a variety of organizations, including Fuels Marketing, Supply & Transportation, Controllers and Information Technology. As part of the IT organization, Kristine has worked in the Infrastructure and Security and Standards & Controls organizations, and participated in implementing several enterprise-wide SAP solutions. Kristine’s organization is responsible for delivering Upstream-specific IT system components to all global Upstream sites.  This includes onsite and remote support for ExxonMobil and Joint-Venture operated sites in Abu Dhabi, Angola, Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Germany, Malaysia, Nigeria, Norway, Qatar, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States. 

 Carlos Santacruz
Vice President of Global Energy Group
Citigroup Investment Bank

Prior to joining Citi, Mr. Santacruz worked as Eagle Ford reserves coordinator for BHP Billiton; he was the technical lead of a multidisciplinary team who designed and executed a forecasting methodology using DCA, numerical and analytical models. He worked on A&D, reservoir surveillance, completion optimization and reservoir characterization studies in Austin Chalk, Eagle Ford and Haynesville. Mr. Santacruz also worked with Noble Energy in different basins around the world: He worked as a Reservoir Engineer for development projects in China and onshore US performing numerical simulation, volumetric calculations, supporting operations, planning and reserves reporting, He worked on divestiture projects in the UK, Netherlands, China and he also worked in exploration projects in the US, Nicaragua and Cameroon. He started his career with Noble Energy as a geologist in Eagle Ford and transitioned to reservoir engineering roles afterwards. He has four publications with multidisciplinary approaches in exploration, geologic modeling (AAPG), flow simulation and reservoir surveillance (URTEC). Mr. Santacruz graduated with a Master of Science in Petroleum Geology from the University of Oklahoma and a Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering from the National University of Colombia.

Saheb Sabharwal, P.E.
Vice President
CSL Capital Management

Saheb Sabharwal is a Vice President at CSL Capital Management, a Houston based Private Equity fund focused on providing start-up capital and growth funding to services-based businesses in Oil & Gas. Prior to joining CSL, Saheb was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company in Houston where he served Oil & Gas clients as well as Utility companies across strategy, operations, and M&A. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. 

Rakshita Agrawal
Principal
The Boston Consulting Group

Rakshita Agrawal is a Principal in the Houston office of The Boston Consulting Group, where she is a core member of BCG's energy and operations practice. She has worked with oil & gas and utility clients on strategy, operations and organization topics. Recent focus areas include digital strategy development and operating model design at major oil and gas clients. She has also led BCG’s proprietary research on autonomous vehicles. Rakshita holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. She has lived and worked in the US and Germany.

Andrew Jennings
Principal
The Boston Consulting Group

Andrew Jennings is a Principal in the Houston office of The Boston Consulting Group, where he is a core member of BCG's energy practice. He has led operations and organization transformations for large international oil and gas businesses across asset classes (e.g. from unconventionals to deepwater) and regions (US to Asia Pacific). Recently Andrew has been focused on a transformation for an oil major in deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Andrew holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science from Caltech. 

Raya Guruswami
C.E.O.
EnergyFundz

Raya has over 10 years of experience in the oil & gas industry in major construction projects and upstream exploration and drilling. Prior to EnergyFundz™, Raya worked in BP’s Rig Startup and Acquisition team and held roles in rig vetting, project management, planning and commercial analysis. He holds a BS in Energy-Finance from Penn State University, MS in Systems Engineering from Johns Hopkins and MBA from IE Business School (Madrid). Raya founded EnergyFundz™ in 2015 and the company focuses on acquisition, due-diligence and relocation of rigs and oilfield equipment. EnergyFundz™ mission is to find unique and lucrative deals in a challenging oil & gas market. This is achieved by connecting their extensive buyer network with vetted sellers of new or used rigs and oilfield equipment. Having proven the model offline, EnergyFundz™ is in the process of moving to an online platform which allows buyer and sellers around the world to connect with one another.

Michael Witte
C.O.O.
RigUp

Michael is a co-founder and COO of RigUp, the largest online marketplace for oilfield services and equipment. RigUp aims to connect E&P companies with service providers for safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly operations. Michael works alongside a growing team in Austin Texas, to help build and grow the RigUp network. Previously Michael worked for Pressler Petroleum Consultants and Encana Corporation. Michael has a MBA from Columbia Business School and bachelors in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Peggy Rijken
Team Lead Productivity Geomechanics
Chevron

Peggy Rijken Is the Team Leader for the Productivity Geomechanics team in the Reservoir and Production Engineering department at Chevron. She began her career as a geomechanics specialist, solving problems related to hydraulic fracturing, fracture containment, injection decline, sanding, subsidence, fault reactivation and perforating. She has since worked on a variety of significant and complex projects across the globe. Rijken is a petroleum engineering graduate of the University of Texas (PhD) and holds a Masters in Mining and Petroleum Engineering from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. Rijken currently serves as the 2018 SPE ATCE Program Committee Vice Chair and is a member of the SPE Talent Council and the SPE Soft Skills committee. She has previously served on the SPE ATCE Well Stimulation committee, the Well Completions committee and the Reservoir Engineering committee. Where she served as the chair for the Well Stimulation committee and the Reservoir Engineering committee. She is also the recipient of the 2015 UT Austin Distinguished Alumna Award.

Christy Lan
Subsea Production Specialist
Bureau of Safety Environment Enforecement

Christy has worked the Minerals Management Service / Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement for 12 years. Christy started off in the Technical Assessment Section reviewing Deepwater Operations Plans and new technology proposals.  Christy has held positions as the Chief of the Standards Development Section, in the research branch and is currently working in the Engineering Technology Center as a subsea production specialist.  Prior to working at BSEE, Christy worked for both Marathon Oil and GE.  Christy graduated in 2003 from the University of Kentucky with a bachelors in Chemical Engineering.