Women In Energy (WIE): Continuing The Journey Through The Glass Ceiling

Dear Members,

This is a one day seminar taking place at the Royal Institution. This year’s event is entitled “Continuing the journey through the glass ceiling – increasing the number of women in senior roles”. It has long been recognised that having a diverse workforce throughout an organisation is beneficial to the company as a whole and so in this seminar we will be focussing on how companies in the oil and gas industry can retain their talented female population throughout their career journeys.

Delegates will attend a series of keynote speeches from inspirational female leaders who have risen through the ranks and who share their career journey with the audience. This will be followed by panel sessions whereby senior leaders in the industry discuss their views on achieving balance between the genders in work and family life, on how the glass ceiling can be further broken through. This is complimented by a series of workshops on such topics as communication skills, assertiveness, and leadership skills which are delivered by experienced professional consultancies.

Who is this seminar aimed at:

• Female professionals working in the energy sector
• Male professionals are also welcome to join!
• All backgrounds including engineering, finance, HR and management.
• All levels from students to experienced professionals will benefit from the sharing of experiences.

Why you should attend:

• The aim is to encourage women to take charge of your career success and perform to your best throughout all the stages of your career in a male-dominated industry.
• In the keynote speeches and panel session, delegates can benefit from sharing experiences and understanding how others have faced career challenges.
• The workshops this year are biased towards leadership skills to complement the theme of the seminar of continuing the journey through the glass ceiling, however, leadership is advantageous in any role no matter where you are in your career journey.
• The seminar provides an opportunity to network with like-minded people in the energy sector.
• On top of this, the event gives visibility to the benefits of gender diversity within the energy industry.

Please read more about the agenda, the speakers and booking information below.

This event is kindly sponsored by by Afren, Schlumberger, OPC, Sasol, Turner Lovell and Upstream

Agenda:

Venue: Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4BS
www.rigb.org

Booking: www.katemcmillan.co.uk, tel 07736 070066, email katespe@aol.com
Cost: £60 for SPE/PESGB/EI Members, £50 for group booking (6 or more), £20 for students.

Aim of the Seminar

The WIE seminar presents an opportunity for the members of the energy sector to come together and discuss career challenges faced while working in the energy industry. It facilitates networking amongst the delegates and allows them to benefit from sharing experiences and insights on gender-related career topics.

The day begins with keynote speeches from inspirational female leaders who have risen through the ranks and who share their career journey with the audience.  This is followed by a panel session where senior leaders in the industry discuss their views on achieving balance between the genders in work and family life, on how the glass ceiling can be further broken through and the gender gap minimised, and particularly this year, we will discuss the impact of the European Commission’s proposed law to improve gender balance in company boardrooms. 

The proposal was voted in with an overwhelming majority in November 2013 and comprises of a law mandating any publicly listed company in Europe which does not have 40% of women among its non-executive board members to introduce a new selection procedure for board members which gives priority to qualified female candidates. 

This is complimented by a series of workshops on such topics as communication skills, assertiveness, and leadership skills which are delivered by experienced professional consultancies.

SPEAKERS:

Iman Hill - Sasol

Sasol Petroleum International’s General Manager of Technical and Operational Services since November 2012.  She has a BSc in Biochemistry and MSc in Computing Sciences from Aberdeen University.  She started her career at BP as Assistant Petroleum Engineer, moving on to other roles including Reservoir Engineer, Petrophysicist and Senior Reservoir Engineer before joining Monument Oil And Gas as Chief Petroleum Engineer in 1995. She then spent 10 years in Shell starting as Principal Reservoir Engineer in Malaysia and then progressed through the ranks holding positions such as General Manager Field Development, Senior Regional Adviser Africa, working for the Committee of Managing directors in support of their regional roles.  She then took on the position of general manager for Shell Egypt and Chairwoman for Shell companies in Egypt. In 2005 she joined BG as VP and GM Developments and went on to become Senior VP BG Brazil. On top of all of this she has 5 children!

Jennifer Burton – Afren Resources

Jennifer has a diversified background in oil and gas exploration and development activities across the US and international arenas. Having started her career as a project geologist with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, she is an AAPG Certified Petroleum Geologist having detailed experience in project evaluation including economics, strategic planning, business development and acquisitions and divesture evaluation. After over 10 years with Anadarko, she then became Vice-President of Geoscience with Griffiths and Associates before taking a position as lead geologist for Legado Resources.  Since 2013 she has served as Vice President of Portfolio Management for Afren Resources. She also serves as Educational Outreach Chairman for the Houston Geological Society and has been actively involved in career development and professional recruitment programs.

Maria Trujillo – ConocoPhilips

Maria has had a varied and international career studying in Venezuala, Italy, Poland and the UK.  She has worked for PDVSA, GeoServices, Expro, Senergy, Talisman and is now a Reservoir Engineer at ConocoPhillips. She led the Another Perspective initiative in the SPE Aberdeen section and she has been awarded twice the North Sea Regional award of the SPE for Outstanding Young Professional, and once the same award at International level. Besides after leading the initiative was also recognised internationally by the SPE with yet another award.

Jane Burt – BP

Jane Burt, VP HR, BP is accountable for delivering the HR agenda for BP’s North Africa region. She plays a key role in supporting the management of change and the creation and implementation of the people strategy for the region. Jane has held a number of HR roles since joining BP, including HR Director for the Eastern Hemisphere, Exploration Division and roles in the Corporate & Functions and Integrated Supply & Trading businesses.

Prior to joining BP, Jane was HR Director at Santander where she led a variety of transformation programmes, mergers & acquisitions and start-ups. She was Head of HR for trading exchange LIFFE. Jane is a Non-Executive Director of CLIC Sargent, a charity which supports children and young people with cancer, is on the Business and  Management Committee of MIND, a mental health charity and the Performance & Remuneration Committee of Samaritans.

Piers Johnson – OPC

Piers is an experienced petroleum engineer with 30 years’ experience. He holds a B.Sc.(Hons) degree in Mechanical Engineering from Nottingham University, and is a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He is past Chairman of the London Section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), a Member of the petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain and a member of the Institute of Energy.

He is the founder of Oilfield Production Consultants (OPC) Limited having previously worked for Flopetrol Johnston Schlumberger as Well Test Supervisor, Location manager and District Sales Engineer (Asia). He has experience of oil and gas operations, field evaluations and well test interpretation worldwide and is also a Visiting Lecturer in Petroleum Engineering at the Institut Français du Pétrole in Paris.

Gro Kielland – Hagrola Consulting AS

Gro Kielland has more than 30 years experience from the Oil and Energy Industry. She holds a MSc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. She spent close to 20 years working for BP in Norway and in the UK. Her last two roles were Managing Wytch Farm in Dorset, then moving on to be Managing Director of BP Norway from 2005 to 2008. She has worked within areas of Operations, managing Major projects and HSE in addition to General Management.

Since leaving BP in 2008, Kielland has been holding a number of Non Executive roles in the industry, working within a number of different ownership structures, ranging from PE owned  to listed and privately owned companies. She also has her own consultancy company, Hagrola Consulting AS.

David Mahoney – Turner Lovell

After reading Psychology at university, David began his career as a sales analyst, before moving quickly over to recruitment focusing on placing contract and staff financial analysts into blue chip corporates including both downstream and upstream businesses including Chevron, Burlington Resources, BP and Total. David quickly established himself as one of the top consultants in the UK rising to number 4 in the UK out of 120 at the time  of his exit from the business.

He then joined the Turner Lovell business and founded their technical upstream division. Here he was central to their transformation into the pure Upstream recruitment business they are today. Initially David focused on Drilling and Completions before going on to found Turner Lovell’s G&G and Reservoir Engineering business units. More recently he has led the creation of their Executive Search business segment.

Sally Martin – Shell

Sally was born in Cork, Ireland in June 1965. She studied Electrical Engineering at University College, Cork and joined Shell in 1987 as an Instrument Engineer at Stanlow Refinery, near Liverpool.
In 1989, she trained as a Process Control Engineer, and subsequently became an Oil Movements Maintenance Engineer. In 1995, she moved into Construction Project Management.  In 2001, she became the Contracting and Procurement Manager of Stanlow Refinery for 2 years, and following that, took up a position as Area Distribution Manger for the UK and Ireland.  She moved to Petit-Couronne Refinery in North West France as General Manager in November 2005, and from there to London in November 2007 to join the Strategy and Portfolio Team as a Consultancy Manager.  In 2010, she became VP Commercial Services in Projects and Technology Downstream and moved to the role as VP HSSE for Downstream in July 2013.  In January 2014 she was appointed VP Safety, Environment & SP Downstream & Manufacturing.

She enjoys water-sports and skiing, and lives in London.