Biography

José Pires serves as the Global Excellence & Innovation (E&I) Leader for Andeavor Corporation, where he oversees the global identification, prioritization and execution of mission critical business improvements and innovations that add value to the company, business partners and external clients in multiple markets.

Prior to his current role, Pires held Excellence and Innovation leadership positions in large, global companies in the electronics (Sony), semiconductor (Cymer-ASML), food (Nestlé) and infrastructure (Black & Veatch) industries. Throughout his career, Pires developed and refined E&I as an award winning program for innovation, leadership development, strategy execution and value creation globally.

Pires is an advisory board leader and keynote speaker for several global conferences on innovation, operational excellence, leadership development, strategy execution, business transformation, customer engagement and growth acceleration.

He holds a Bachelor in Engineering Physics from the University of Kansas and a Master in Business Administration focused in Investment Banking and Entrepreneurship from the University of San Diego.

Biography

Cody Nath is the President & CEO of Refined Technologies, Inc (RTI), a leading industrial services provider to the refining and petrochemical market. He also helps to lead Southern Brush, Inc, a pipeline right-of-way service business and serves as the lead investor in WiseRock, a Praxis accelerator business from the 2021 cohort. In the non-profit arena, Cody helped to found a ministry called CrossWalk Center (CWC) Houston focused on helping men and women re-enter society from incarceration through Christian discipleship, housing, and employment. RTI currently employees >15 CWC clients. Cody also serves on the National Leadership Council for World Vision and is actively involved with them to bring clean water to Honduras.

Biography

Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Operational Excellence, Management System, and Operational Risk Management (ERM) executive with 26 years of experience in creating, collaborating, and implementing vision, mission, and direction for Continuous Improvement of effectiveness, efficiency, and reliability of Sustainability (ESG), Operational Excellence, Management System, and Risk Management processes. Senior leader, who lead, inspired, enabled, and empowered the effort of more than 300 enterprise-wide cross-functional teams in over 2100 Business Improvement initiatives, which delivered breakthrough performance, exponential value creation, and transformational business growth in achieving Enterprise Vision, Mission, Goals, Objectives, and Strategic Priorities. Servant leader, collaborator, and experienced facilitator, coach, mentor, and practitioner of Continuous Improvement disciplines such as: LEAN, Six Sigma, PMP, KAIZEN, TRIZ, Problem Solving, Standardization, Process Management, and Business Process Re-Engineering. Gained leadership experience in large organizations such as: Marathon Petroleum Corporation, Andeavor, Tesoro, Time Warner Inc., Department of Defense (DOD), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Department of the Air Force. Served as Director, Operational Risk Management; Director, Enterprise Business Improvement; Director, Process Improvement; Director, Process Management; Senior Expert, Defense Policy&Strategy; and Mig-27 Air-Squadron Commander. Strategic, visionary, result-oriented, analytical and influential collaborator (Level 5 Leader), and inventive problem solver.

Biography

Tim Wigham grew up in Southern Africa. He served in the British Commandos for eight years between 1992 and 2000 and departed as a Royal Marines Captain after serving on operations in Northern Ireland, West Africa, and the Caucasus.

In 2001, Tim completed his full-time MBA in Cape Town. His electives focused on strategy, leadership, and entrepreneurship.

Tim then started a business in South Africa which specialised in SME executive leadership breakaways across a range of industries, to help leaders build strong team cohesion, clear strategy, mission, vision, and authentic company values.

In the sports industry, Tim worked on mental toughness with several of the Springbok rugby players who went on to be World Cup winners in 2007.

Tim is currently the head of performance at Exceed in Aberdeen, Scotland. He has worked as a performance improvement expert in the energy sector since 2007. Exceed has provided performance solutions to over 30 offshore teams, including drilling and decommissioning projects for several Operators in the North Sea. These teams have all achieved exceptional results through their commitment to a proven process which includes a rig-based performance coach.

Tim is married and has three young children. He has lived in Scotland since 2012. His main interests include faith, family, fitness, reading, writing, and learning. He also enjoys blogging about inspiration.

Biography

Malcolm has 30+ years of experience in industry as an IT professional, mainly centered within the oil and gas E&P sector. He most recently joins Nasuni from Ithaca Energy, a leading independent oil and gas company with production, development, and exploration operations in the UK North Sea, where he was the IT Operations Manager. Prior to that he was an electronics engineer and made the transition into IT in the late 1980s. Having participated as a member of senior management within various organizations Malcolm is able to visualize business strategy and translate that into the IT requirements needed to underpin it. In today’s uncertain and ever-changing threat landscape, security is very much at the forefront of and integral to all the decisions he makes

Biography

Biography

I have dedicated more than 30 years to the petroleum industry holding several international technology positions in Repsol. I am particularly focused on the value added to the E&P Business by new technologies in the field of Geosciences, and presently related to the Digital Transformation in the E&P Business.

I am a strongly believer that the maximum value added by a Geoscience Division within an Oil Company comes from the development of Proprietary Technologies and their application through careful execution of In-house Integrated Projects combining Innovation, Transversal Know-How Integration of different Geophysical and Geological Disciplines and Close Interection with Interpreters and Engineers from Exploration and Development during all execution phases.

I have received an award from IEEE Spectrum in 2008 for the Kaleidoscope Project recognizing one the most innovative projects of the year 2007, and another award from Platts recognizing the most Commercial Technology of the year in 2009. In 2018 I received the Repsol´s INN Award recognizing my innovative projects in Digital Transformation in Repsol.

I have authored and coauthored numerous technical papers presented in International Conferences. I am also frequent key note speaker in Conferences, and participant in panels regarding Digital Transformation in E&P.

I am affiliated with SEG, EAGE and SPE. 

Biography

Julie Thyne has worked for Dow for the last 22 years in a variety of manufacturing and engineering positions. She is currently a Global  Improvement Leader. Julie is the recipient of the 2014 STEP Ahead award from the Manufacturing Institute. Outside of work, Julie promotes STEM education for elementary and middle school students.  

Biography

Ed is currently Vice-President of Operational Excellence Assessment and Oversight for Duke Energy. His group performs assessments of Duke operational business units, to promote event-free performance and continuous improvement in safety, reliability and efficiency.

Ed joined Duke Energy, (through legacy companies Carolina Power & Light and Progress Energy) in 1983. Over a 36-year career, he has held various operations, engineering, and strategy roles in electrical generation and distribution, including plant manager, engineering director, and fleet operations general manager.     

Ed holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University and a Master of Business Administration from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.     

He has been married to his high school sweetheart for 36 years, has three grown children, and is the grandfather of twin boys. He and his wife Susan reside in Davidson, NC, where he enjoys golf, tennis, running, gardening, and reading.

Biography

Experienced Director Of Engineering with a demonstrated history of working in the oil & energy industry. Skilled in Petroleum, Tanks, Pumps, and Occupational Health. Strong engineering professional graduated from Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College. Has successfully managed cross country pipelines and terminals assets. 

Biography

Experienced Learning executive with a demonstrated history of strategic workforce transformation and capability development. Specialization in complex, global, high risk-high compliance industries. Passionate about leading cutting edge innovation in the learning space, with particular attention to learning in the flow of work. 

Biography

- Business and Technology leader with over 20 years of hands-on experience in driving business transformation and operational excellence to achieve business outcomes

- Creative change agent and thinker with extensive knowledge to how to incorporate innovation into business strategy and evolving organizations to achieve their business goals

- Experienced in crafting a vision, developing strategy, directing complex programs, Operational excellence, and building high-impact teams

- Passionate about working with organizations and teams at all levels to create new possibilities and drive value creation

• Background brings a unique perspective on what works, what does not work, and what it takes for organizations to implement change.

- Dedicated contributor to the community as an advisor to non-profits and early stage startups to help define their value proposition and scale by leveraging experiences as a co-founder

• A strong believer that theory only matters if it can be applied and create value

Biography

Experienced Strategy & Corporate Development Executive with a track record of delivery across strategy development, business performance improvement, BD and M&A, with a passion for the application of digital technology to enable business performance and for driving renewable technology projects to support the Energy Transition 

Biography

Experienced Enterprise Executive with an extensive background in data analytics, with a specific focus on enterprise business process optimization. Chris has been with Celonis for 4+ years, and prior to supporting organizations with their business transformation, process excellence, and systems migration initiatives he worked for IBM with a strong focus in their analytics organization.

Biography

Debbie is a Technology Leader for the Environmental Analytical (EA) Team in the Environmental Technology Center at Dow.  In her role, Debbie fosters innovation and drives Manufacturing 4.0 initiatives within the Global Environmental Operations Business.  Debbie is passionate about developing people and building high achieving, empowered work teams.  Under Debbie's leadership, the EA team has successful implemented innovative technologies that increase safety, productivity and reliability. 

Debbie holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Central Michigan University and a Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from New Mexico Tech.  Debbie is a Prosci certified change management practitioner, Human Synergistics accredited facilitator for organizational culture effectiveness and a Franklin Covey certified facilitator. 

Biography

Brad Sullivan is a Regional Sales Director located in Dallas supporting the South Central region. He began his career with IBM selling both mid-range and mainframe computers to the energy and manufacturing verticals.  In college, Brad earned a BBA in finance and his next endeavor focused on global M&A activities for  technology companies. 

Brad's career later evolved to artificial intelligence for Texas Instruments where he interacted with the US Navy and and various aerospace companies.   Next Brad was asked to join Oracle with a focus on application and database technologies for large investor owned utility companies where he achieved recognition as the #1 sales person the world.  Ultimately, Brad career grew into networking and more recently has spent time at both Riverbed and Arista Networks.

Biography

Rami, throughout his 20+ years of service at Saudi Aramco, has been assigned to diverse assignments covering engineering, operations and maintenance fields during which he implemented various mechanisms to establish and embed operational excellence culture within the organization. As a result, he led his OpEx team to win various international recognitions such as the Global Organization Excellence Congress Benchmarking award, King Abdulaziz Quality Award as well as the Oil & Gas and Refining & Petrochemical Middle East Awards Operational Excellence Strategy of the Year. He also led the team toward being the 1st Saudi Aramco organization to successfully achieve the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) “Committed to Sustainability” recognition.

Biography

Biography

Electrical engineer, post graduated in Automation system (both graduated in Rio de Janeiro), working on Oil and Gas market for last 13 years, which part as engineering EPCI projects around the world and part as FPSO Operation support and Manager. Nowadays working as onshore Operation Manager of a FPSO located in Brazil Pre-salt, driving the operation based on people management and leadership perspective. I truly believe that people make the difference for the success of operations and motivation is the key for the professional grow in the team. I already lived in Romania and UK for work and today living in Rio de Janeiro. Married and father of 2 small kinds, I get in my family the support necessary to continuous to try to improve my skills and try to do my best.

Biography

For over 30 years, Rick Heyland has consulted businesses of all sizes to improve performance in a variety of industries across nations. As Executive Vice President Global Client Solutions for RLG International, Rick is driven by his passion for coaching clients to achieve peak performance both individually and collectively within their organizations. Among his significant accomplishments are the establishment of five business units: Aerospace, Alaska, Offshore Oil and Gas, Capital Projects and Lower 48, and has been influential in developing RLG’s leadership tools. Today, Rick leads new business development for RLG and runs his personal development company, CI4Life, helping leaders achieve peak performance, sharing learnings and best practices of continuous improvement. Also, from RLG, co-presenting and assisting with Q&A, will be Rick’s colleagues and subject matter experts whose expertise on Capital Projects span the globe, Vice President Eurasia, Neil Longson and Kirk Gibson, Vice President, Regional Mega Projects.

Biography