Larry Hibbard, Advisor - Energy Industry, Marketing, and Operations

 

Luis Mesa, Advisor - Energy Industry, Finance and Admin, Governance
                                                        

Ray Robidoux, Advisor - High Tech Industry, Sales & Marketing, and Operations
 

Chris Draper, Advisor - High Tech Industry, Learning, HR, and Human Performance 

 

Roopa Gir, Advisor - Energy Industry, Highly Published Industry Thought Leader, and Academic

 

Kris Ramanadhan,  Advisor - Energy Refinery and Petrochemical Industry, and Operations

 

 

​Larry Hibbard, Advisor​

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Larry brings almost 40 years of experience in the oil and gas sector to our clients. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Xtreme Drilling and Coil Services [Toronto exchange], Trigpoint Solutions, PHX Energy Services [Toronto exchange], and Zahroof Valves. Prior to this, he was Chairman of Total Separations Solutions and Xact Downhole Telemetry and also co-founded the Argonauta Training a Deepwater & Engineering training group, which focuses on energy sector training.

 

While at Schlumberger for over 30 years, Larry held numerous senior lexecutive evel positions across multiple geographies and product lines. He was one of the leaders in the formation of Anadrill, the drilling and measurement unit of Schlumberger, as VP and General Manager, and also held several other operational and marketing VP positions within the company. Larry was also VP of Worldwide Marketing at Sedco Forex (predecessor of Transocean) and VP and General Manager of a new product line called IPM (Integrated Project Management). This unit grew from a start-up in 1995 to $1.2 billion in revenue in 10 years.

 

 

Luis Mesa, Advisor​

 

Luis Mesa is a Senior Business Advisor of Kenda Capital, a Member of the Board of Prometheus Energy Group, Inc. and Xact Downhole Telemetry, as well as Senior Advisor of Coil Tubing Solutions, LLC. He also recently served as a Board Member of Zahroof Valve, Inc.. Previously, Mr. Mesa was a part of Shell Technology Ventures starting in 2005 and moved to Kenda Capital (its successor) in 2007. While at STV and Kenda, Mr. Mesa served as Chairman and Director of Thrubit LLC and At Balance Americas; he was associated with these two companies from their inception to successful exits. In addition, Mr. Mesa served as Director of Zeitecs, Inc. and Enventure Global Technology, Inc..

 

Luis has over 35 years experience in international finance and management, 25 of them with Schlumberger in their different product lines (Seismic, Offshore Drilling, Drilling and Measurements, Completions, and Schlumberger Limited Corporate). He worked in a variety of global and regional assignments in Europe, Middle East, Far East, and North and South America, in roles such as Area CFO, Treasurer, and Chief of Internal Audit. Mr. Mesa also worked with Shell and Mobil in their downstream business prior to joining Schlumberger. While at Schlumberger, Mr. Mesa worked in several acquisitions and divestments, and was a key player in the teams that turned Anadrill and Geco into profitable product lines.  He also served as CFO of Oilfield Services, North and South America.

 

Luis holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Stanford University, and a MBA from ICMS. He has also attended The Advance Business Management School at Stanford, and participated in several courses in International Taxation and Treasury. Mr. Mesa has also served as Board Member of cultural and charitable institutions.

 

 

Ray Robidoux, Advisor 

 

Ray brings over 25 years of executive level experience in the technology sector, with a broad range of functional experience, including operations and sales & marketing, in multiple channels and market segments. Past executive roles have included Vice President of Operations and Business Planning as well as Vice President Consumer North America at Compaq Computer, President of Netgear, General Manager of Quantum’s Snap Appliance Division and several other sales executive positions. In addition, he has held the CEO position at several smaller companies, including Anthology Solutions, a NAS manufacturer, and Asoka USA, a powerline communications company. Since 2004, Ray has also been a part of Sand Hill Angels, serving on the Board of Directors and leading the Screening Committee. He has been instrumental in the investments and growth of companies such as Mojo Mobility, an innovative wireless charging technology company.

 

Via these various leadership roles, Ray has been a key member of corporate governance groups relating to product strategies, Enterprise Solutions with and without selling partners, channel/pricing policies, and the establishment of new governance guidelines to accommodate a new business model. In addition, Ray has been instrumental and led several major re-engineering/change management projects, acquisition integrations and responses to new market developments.

 

For the past seven years, Ray has been consulting to companies in the areas of business, strategic, and go-to-market planning, taking an active “hands on” approach. These roles have included several acting roles at the executive level, including sales, marketing and general management. He has helped create plans which resulted in developing markets for totally new product segments as well as ground breaking business models. Projects have also involved defining and initiating work with offshore resources, third party strategic partners and sourcing investments for growth companies.

 

Ray has an MBA from Pepperdine University and Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Cal Poly, Pomona.


​Chris Draper, Advisor​

 

Chris has over 30 years of senior business leadership and executive operating experience across learning assessment, learning strategy, and learning operations, as well as general business operations and consulting. He is currently Vice President and COO for The Educational Testing Service’s (ETS) College Board business with responsibility for assessment development, publications, logistics, administration, security, scoring, reporting and customer care for over 11 million SAT®, AP®, PSAT/NMSQT and CLEP assessments delivered annually across the globe. 

 

Past executive roles have included Chief Learning Officer at Avaya, Senior Executive (Partner) in Accenture's Global Innovation and Offering Management for Human Resources & Learning, and Senior Executive at Accenture handling human performance related consulting projects for consumer products, media/publishing, pharmaceuticals, aerospace and defense, and industrial products enterprises. 

 

As the CLO at Avaya, Chris defined and operationalized a learning strategy which supported solutions selling, global learning process standardization, learning governance and cost rationalization. He led the planning, designing, building and delivering of over 1,800 courses for Avaya’s customers, channel partners and associates in over 20 countries, serving over 100,000 learners.

 

Chris has an MBA from the University of Georgia and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  He is an inventor on several pending patents in the learning domain.

 

 

Dr. Roopa Gir, Advisor​

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Roopa is currently Managing Partner of ARG Global Technologies, Director at Nafta International, Inc., an oil and gas trading company, and an Advisor/Consultant to Schlumberger.  Prior to these roles, Roopa spent 28 years with Schlumberger in various management and technical roles across multiple continents.  She was also Director for Technology Watch, a leading oil and gas industry publication. 

 

Throughout her professional career, Roopa has been actively involved in teaching and publishing papers, with over 40 publications in International journals.  She is also active in the industry speaking circuit.  She has presented a key note speech at IPA/SEG on “Maximizing the economic performance of oil and gas fields through technology and teamwork: Key elements for creating growth," was a speaker at the UN Focal Point for Women conference at the United Nations, New York, and recently delivered the commencement speech on Energy outlook at the University of Strasbourg, France. 

 

Roopa has a Ph.D in Seismology from University Louis Pasteur, France, and an M.Tech in Applied Geophysics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (IIT) where she graduated with the Gold Medal.

 

 

Dr. Kris Ramanadhan, Advisor​

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Kris is a trusted adviser and independent consultant to the Oil and Gas industry. He has over 35 years of experience at executive levels in the Petroleum Refining and Petrochemicals sector in the USA and international locations with ExxonMobil.  During his tenure with ExxonMobil, Kris worked in several areas including international business development, technical and commercial negotiations, refining and chemicals integration and operations, and development and deploying complex, cross-border joint ventures.  He also served as Vice President of ExxonMobil’s China Petroleum and Petrochemical Company.

 

Kris is currently the President of Petro Biz Solutions, an independent consulting company offering services to the Oil and Gas sector and to major consulting organizations with a focus on refining and petrochemicals. In addition, he is an Executive Consultant and Instructor with the IHRDC corporation involved in Executive Leadership development in the Upstream and Downstream segments of the Oil and gas value chain.

 

He has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University, and is a graduate of the New Leadership Program in International business from Thunderbird University.

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