Speakers

Chris Atherton is the CEO of EnergyNet, Inc. EnergyNet is an oil and gas asset acquisition and divestiture firm specializing in auction sales, sealed bid transactions and government lease sales. Chris has been part of the EnergyNet team since 2002. He has been actively involved as the firm has completed over $6B in transactions including sell-side mandates from thousands of Exploration and Production clients. Chris leads a multi-disciplinary team of 50 professionals specializing in engineering, land, technical, business development, marketing, IT and administration. Chris has 18 years of experience in the energy industry. Chris graduated from Texas State in San Marcos with a business management and marketing degree. Prior to EnergyNet, Chris worked at the Enron Corporation in Houston, Texas Chris recently served as the Chairman of the Wildcatter’s Host Committee for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. Chris served as the Chairman for the SPE-Gulf Coast Section Business Development Study Group for three years. He is also an active member of the IPAA, Texas Energy Alliance, ADAM Houston, ADAM Permian and Houston Producer's Forum. Chris holds series 39, 22 and 63 SEC licenses.

Don's 33 year career in the oil patch has spanned a variety of technical and leadership roles. After an undergraduate degree in geology from Duke University and a master's degree in geology from the University of Oklahoma, Don began his first professional job in 1984 as an exploration geologist for Marathon Oil in Midland, Texas. After 10 years, he left Marathon to join Samson Resources in Tulsa, Oklahoma...and has stayed in Tulsa ever since. After 4 years at Samson, Don joined Vintage Petroleum in the global acquisitions group, where he worked on over 80 acquisition evaluations in 30 different basins, successfully deploying nearly $1 billion in capital during his 7 1/2 year career there. After the sale of Vintage to OXY in 2006, Don became the Geoscience Manager at Questar, directing the exploration efforts for the Tulsa office. He later became the Manager of A&D/New Ventures at Laredo Petroleum, where he helped in the $1 billion acquisition of Broad Oak Energy in 2011, and incidentally, founded the ADAM-Tulsa group. Don joined Panther Energy II in the summer of 2013 as a founding partner and VP of Geology/New Ventures. At Panther, he helped lead the effort to initiate and grow their position in the Delaware Basin eventually ending in an $863 million sale January of 2017. Don now serves as CEO of Olifant Energy, LLC, a private-equity backed start-up with a focus on the Permian, Mid-Continent and ArkLaTex areas. He also serves in various professional and community organizations, including the board of OIPA and the Tulsa Regional Chamber Energy Council. Don and his wife Marla have been married for 26 years.

Prior to joining EnCap in March 2007, Mr. Burroughs spent four years working in UBS Investment Bank’s Global Energy Group. While at UBS, Mr. Burroughs worked on over 20 capital markets transactions raising over $11 billion in capital and worked on several M&A advisory assignments. Prior to joining UBS Investment Bank, Mr. Burroughs spent three years at Sanders Morris Harris, Inc., an investment banking firm in Houston. He received a Master of Business Administration degree from the Jesse H. Jones School of Management at Rice University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from The University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Burroughs serves on the board of directors of several EnCap portfolio companies and is a member of the Houston Producers’ Forum and the Independent Petroleum Association of America. In addition, he serves on the board of directors of both the Broach Foundation For Brain Cancer Research and the Small Steps Nurturing Center.

Bio Coming Soon

Neal Dingmann has over 12 years of equity research experience. At SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, he covers companies in the E&P and oilfield services sectors. He held similar positions at Wunderlich Securities, Dahlman Rose, RBC Capital and Bank of America Securities. Dingmann was recognized last year by the Wall Street Journal as "Best on the Street" and has been recognized as a "Home Run Hitter" by Institutional Investor magazine. He received his Masters of Business Administration from the University of Minnesota and his Bachelor of Arts degree in business from the University of Arkansas.

Prior to co-founding Selenite Energy Partners, Ms. Franks served as a Principal with The Carlyle Group from 2014-2019, where she focused on business development, origination and execution of structured capital investment opportunities in the upstream and midstream sectors. Previously, from 2006-2014, she spent eight years with EIG Global Energy Partners, formerly TCW Energy and Infrastructure Group, focusing on analysis and execution of debt and equity investments across the energy value chain as well as fundraising, valuation and portfolio management. Ms. Franks holds Bachelor of Business Administration and Bachelor of Arts degrees from The University of Texas at Austin, where she majored in finance, Business Honors and Plan II.

Steve W. Herod is our Chief Executive Officer and has served in such capacity since February of 2020. Mr. Herod was a co-founder and Executive Vice President – Corporate Development of Halcon Resources Corporation from 2012 to 2019. Additionally, he was a co-founder and Executive Vice President – Corporate Development of Petrohawk Energy Corporation from 2003 until Petrohawk’s sale to BHP Billiton in 2011. Mr. Herod served as Executive Vice President – Corporate Development for 3TEC Energy Corporation from 1999 to 2003 and served as President of Shore Oil Company from 1992 until the merger of Shore with 3TEC in 1997. From 1984 to 1991, he was with Conquest Exploration Company in various financial management positions. Mr. Herod began his career in 1981 as a financial analyst with Superior Oil Company and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and Management from Oklahoma State University.

Christopher Kalnin co-founded Kalnin Ventures LLC in June 2014. Christopher oversees all activities of the investment fund, including oversight of the team, opportunity sourcing, valuation, asset management and other related activities. Before founding Kalnin Ventures LLC, Christopher worked as Strategist and Vice President for Level 3 Communications (a Fortune 500 company), where he was responsible for developing long-term and global strategies for the company. Prior to this, Christopher worked as a Strategic Advisor to the CEO of PTTEP, Thailand’s National Oil and Gas Company’s upstream company. During his time at PTTEP, Christopher helped to shape the company’s international growth strategy, redesign the company’s new ventures processes and execute investments of several billions of dollars. Prior to working with PTTEP, Christopher was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, where he was responsible for developing and executing business strategies for a number of global Fortune 1000 companies, including a strong focus on the energy sector. Christopher also spent time working as a financial analyst with Credit Suisse First Boston’s Real Estate Capital Partners private equity fund, where he was responsible for valuing and underwriting over $1 billion in transactions. Christopher has an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and an HBA from the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business.

Mr. Lee joined Tailwater Capital in 2020 and is focused on cultivating and evaluating operated upstream opportunities to complement Tailwater’s midstream and non-operated upstream businesses. Mr. Lee has over 22 years of oil & gas experience, primarily through work at operating companies. Prior to joining Tailwater, he served as Vice President at Rees-Jones Holdings in Dallas where he had leadership responsibility for building a minerals company and a non-operated upstream company in the Permian Basin for the Rees-Jones family. Prior to joining Rees-Jones Holdings, Mr. Lee co-founded and served as CFO for Venado Oil & Gas, a private equity backed private company that amassed significant acreage holdings in South Texas and was an active driller and operator of horizontal wells. Mr. Lee joined Venado after spending over eight years at Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE: PXD) where he served as Vice President of Worldwide Business Development and Director of Budgeting & Planning. Early in his career, Mr. Lee spent several years as an investment banking analyst focused on oil and gas transactions at UBS Warburg and J.C. Bradford. Mr. Lee received his BA from the University of Texas at Austin in Business Honors and Finance and earned his MBA with Honors from Southern Methodist University.

Jason has over 17 years of experience in finance and accounting within the energy industry. Jason has worked on over $100 billion of announced advisory and financing transactions for energy companies including mergers and acquisitions, public and private equity, equity-linked, high yield and investment grade bonds, senior debt, and structured finance. Previously, he led Nomura Securities International’s energy team and was at Deutsche Bank for over six years. He began his career on Wall Street in 2002, at J.P. Morgan. He joined BMO Capital Markets in 2013. Jason earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA from Rice University in Houston.

Mr. Nelson joined Stephens in May 2009 as a Managing Director. Mr. Nelson most recently served as a Managing Director at Energy Capital Solutions where he was a founder and employed for the last seven years. Prior to joining ECS in 2001, Mr. Nelson was an Associate in Bear Stearns’ Energy Group, focusing primarily on E&P and oilfield services transactions. Prior to joining Bear Stearns, Mr. Nelson was an Associate with Koch Ventures, the private equity arm of Koch Industries. While at Koch, he focused on providing private capital to energy and technology-related companies. Mr. Nelson received his BS from Oklahoma State University and his MBA from the University of Oklahoma.

Catherine Ozdogan, a partner in the Houston office of Latham & Watkins and former Chair of the firm’s Houston Finance Department, represents financial institutions and corporate borrowers in connection with a wide variety of commercial lending transactions in the oil and gas exploration and production, midstream, and service-related sectors.

Vignesh focuses on asset management, evaluations and business development at Glendale.  Prior to co-founding Glendale, Vignesh was a Partner at Millennial Energy Partners where he led Millennial’s entry into the STACK play and helped secure significant private equity investments leading to direct participation in the acquisition and drilling across most major unconventional plays in the US.  Previously, he was Head of Reserves at Legend Natural Gas and a key member of the team involved in the merger of Legend and KKR Natural Resources.  Prior to Legend, Vignesh was the Manager of Reserves and Economics at Seneca Resources and was the Reservoir Engineering Manager at both Milagro Exploration and Sabco Oil and Gas.  He started his oil and gas career at Intertek Westport as a Petroleum Engineer performing special core analysis.  Vignesh earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University, an M.S. in Petroleum Engineering from New Mexico Tech and a M.B.A. with specialization in Energy Investment and Finance from the University of Houston.  He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas and was named one of Oil & Gas Investor’s Top 30 Under 40 Leaders in 2015.

 

Doug Reynolds joined Simmons Energy | A Division of Piper Sandler® in 2020. Previously, Reynolds was formerly head of US Energy Corporate and Investment Banking at Scotiabank. Prior to that, he was the head of U.S. upstream investment banking at the Macquarie Group. Earlier in his career, Reynolds worked at Banc of America Securities, Credit Suisse and Salomon Brothers. Reynolds earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Colgate University.

EnCore Permian cofounder J.D. Smith began his career in 2000 working in drilling and offshore completions. In 2007 he transitioned to leasing in the Permian Basin. In 2009 Mr. Smith was the exclusive landman for a $3 million, 42,000+ acre prospect. Petrohawk later purchased this asset for $42 million, a 5% overriding royalty interest and carried working interest considerations.

In this same capacity, Mr. Smith transacted and acquired over 150,000 acres of Permian leasehold between 2009 and 2012, generating a net profit of over $100 million.

Mr. Smith also founded a non-profit clean water initiative – the John 4:14 Foundation – which has completed over 250 clean water projects (www.j414.org), serving over 1 million people in Uganda. Mr. Smith lives in Big Spring, Texas with his wife and 3 children.

Mark Teshoian is a managing partner for Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors’ private energy income funds where he focuses on investment origination, deal analysis/structuring, financial due diligence and transaction negotiation.  

Prior to joining Kayne Anderson in 2008, Mr. Teshoian was a vice president in the energy investment banking group of Goldman Sachs. Mr. Teshoian began his career in the energy investment banking group of Credit Suisse. Mr. Teshoian has over twenty years of transactional experience in the oil and gas industry.

Mr. Teshoian earned a B.B.A. in Accounting and a M.S. in Finance from Texas A&M University in 1999.

Rahul Vashi is a corporate partner in the Houston office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. His practice focuses on acquisitions, divestitures, and strategic joint ventures involving upstream and midstream energy assets. Rahul’s practice includes advising clients with the formation of drilling partnerships, joint development arrangements, farmout and participation agreements, and other joint venture arrangements, the acquisition and divestiture of upstream and midstream oil and gas assets and companies, and oil and gas financing transactions.