Speakers

Robert J. Anderson has served as our Chief Executive Officer and President since April 2020 and as a director since July 2021, having previously served as President since April 2018. From December 2014 through April 2018, he served as our Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and Engineering. Previously, he served in a similar capacity with Oak Valley from March 2013 until the closing of its strategic combination with the Company in December 2014. Prior to joining Oak Valley, he served from August 2012 to February 2013 as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Halcón. Mr. Anderson was employed by GeoResources, Inc. from April 2007 until its merger with Halcón in August 2012, ultimately serving as a director and Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer - Northern Region. He was involved in the formation of Southern Bay Energy in September 2004 as Vice President, Acquisitions until its merger with GeoResources in April 2007. From March 2004 to August 2004, Mr. Anderson was employed by AROC, a predecessor company to Southern Bay Energy, as Vice President, Acquisitions and Divestitures. Prior to March 2004 he was employed in technical and supervisory roles with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, major oil companies including ARCO International/Vastar Resources, and independent oil companies, including Hugoton Energy, Hunt Oil and Pacific Enterprises Oil Company. His professional experience of over 30 years includes acquisition evaluation, reservoir and production engineering, field development, project economics, budgeting and planning, and capital markets. Mr. Anderson has a B.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Wyoming and an MBA from the University of Denver.

Mr. Behrens joined Stephens in May 2009 as a Managing Director. Prior to joining Stephens, Mr. Behrens was a Co-Founder and a Managing Partner of Energy Capital Solutions. Mr. Behrens has over 25 years of investment banking experience with major investment banking firms including Bear Stearns and Wasserstein Perella. He has focused most of his career in covering primarily exploration and production companies as well as other energy-related companies. Mr. Behrens has generated and led the execution of various M&A, public & private equity and senior & mezzanine debt transactions representing approximately 185 transactions and $45 billion in transaction volume. In addition to his extensive transaction experience, Mr. Behrens served on the board of directors of Enservco Corp. (NYSE MKT: ENSV) for over six years, currently serves on the board of directors of the Dallas Petroleum Club, recently served as Chairman of the IPAA’s Private Capital Conference and is active in several energy industry organizations. He continues to lend support to the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business by serving on the Advisory Council for the Masters of Finance Program and previously serving on the Advisory Council for the Energy Management and Innovation Center. Mr. Behrens received his BBA and MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Bio coming soon!

Cameron Brown is the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Validus Energy. He is also currently a Managing Partner at Pontem Energy Capital, an alternative capital provider to public and private energy companies. Prior to Validus and Pontem, Cameron worked at Citadel, managing one of the oil & gas industry’s largest public equities portfolios. Cameron has spent his career in the energy industry, including as a member of the upstream private equity team at EnCap Investments and as an investment banker at Lazard. Cameron is a third-generation oil & gas professional and began his career at ExxonMobil in the Marine & Arctic Engineering Group. Cameron earned a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Elizabeth DeStephens is a versatile senior executive in energy, with more than twenty years of global engineering, management, digital technology, and finance experience. She is co-founder and Chief Strategy & Sustainability Officer of Black Knight Energy, a Kayne Anderson portfolio company with a capital commitment in excess of $500mm. Elizabeth has diverse experience spanning upstream, midstream and nuclear energy, as well as in other industries. Elizabeth has served in a lead technical capacity in multiple types of transactions and financings, including joint ventures, mezzanine debt, acquisitions, divestitures, debt exchange, secured and unsecured debt.. She is a recognized expert and speaker on corporate innovation, as well as organizational, cultural and digital transformation.

Elizabeth is an active angel investor with the Golden Seeds Angel Network, which focuses on providing capital to women-led companies. She serves on the Board of 11 Defense, a start up defense company and the University of Florida Department of Materials Science Engineering Advisory Board. She also serves as an advisor to the MIT Corporate Innovation Program. She has a MBA from MIT, M.Eng. from University of Houston, and a B.S. in Materials Engineering from the University of Florida. She is a registered engineer in the state of Texas.

Mark Deverka is a Managing Director in J.P. Morgan’s Energy Investment Banking Group based in Houston and is the Global Head of the Technical Transaction Team. After graduating from Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Petroleum Engineering, Cum Laude, Mr. Deverka spent 15 years working for Shell Oil Company and Greenhill Petroleum acquiring, exploiting, and divesting oil and gas assets. While at Shell Oil Company, Mr. Deverka earned his Juris Doctorate degree from Loyola University College of Law Cum Laude and passed the bar exam in Louisiana and Texas. In 2001, Mr. Deverka left the upstream energy sector to join Petrie Parkman & Co., a private investment bank, and subsequently with Merrill Lynch in 2006 focusing on lead roles in major asset and private company sales, M&A and joint ventures. In 2010, Mark left Bank of America Merrill Lynch to found Catalyst Energy Advisors, until being acquired by J.P. Morgan in August 2015.

Bio coming soon!

Margaret Franks is co-founder, Managing Partner and CFO at Selenite Energy Partners, a firm founded in 2019 to actively pursue structured financing opportunities and special situations in the North American energy space. 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.

JACE GRAHAM is a 4th generation oil and gas professional who formed Rising Phoenix Resources in 2016 exclusively to acquire oil and gas minerals and royalties as well as real estate holdings. Mr. Graham is now rolling out his 4th oil/gas royalty offering, the Rising Phoenix Royalty Fund IV, LP (www.RisingFund4.com) as well built a strategic partnership with a local family office to acquire numerous single family homes in the Dallas/Ft. Worth market with several $mm in real estate notes and over 300 real estate flips in the last 3 years.

Prior to forming Rising Phoenix, Mr. Graham worked for Palo Petroleum, Inc. for over 12 years where he served as Vice President of Operations. Mr. Graham was primarily responsible for Palo’s project implementation, strategic development and direct oversight of Palo’s mineral/royalty acquisition programs. Mr. Graham has been involved in many acquisition and divestiture projects in the oil and gas industry including prospect generation, project management, large leasehold purchases and sales, as well as vast mineral and royalty estate acquisitions.

In 2009, Mr. Graham formed Palo Royalties, LLC to manage the numerous mineral/royalty partnerships that Palo actively participates in. To date, Palo Royalties, LLC has over $60MM in assets under management and will continue to aggregate lucrative minerals/royalties in his newly formed entity, Rising Phoenix Royalties, LLC. Before joining Palo, Mr. Graham was an independent landman in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas where he gained a wealth of knowledge in lease acquisitions and title curative. Prior to his career in the oil and gas business, Mr. Graham managed Houston’s Restaurant (now Hillstone) in Dallas and gained insight into setting up fully functional systems as well as team management.

Mr. Graham holds a Bachelor of Business Marketing from Cornell University where he was a two-year linebacker letterman on the Varsity Football team.

Chris’ practice focuses on the development, acquisitions, divestitures of energy and infrastructure related projects and assets. Chris represents clients in connection with a broad range of assets, including in the upstream, midstream, downstream and renewable sectors. Chris’ transactional experience also includes advising clients in connection with the formation of joint ventures and complex energy projects, DrillCo arrangements, farmout and participation agreements to develop real property assets, transportation, supply, offtake and gathering agreements and other commercial transactions concerning the development of real assets.

Kyle Kafka joined EnCap in July 2006 and serves as a Partner. Mr. Kafka is involved in sourcing, structuring, executing, and monitoring EnCap’s investments and has extensive experience in upstream, minerals, midstream and energy transition investments.

Mr. Kafka serves on the board of directors of Ameredev II, Arbor Renewable Gas, Cogent Midstream, EnCap Minerals, Enduring IV, Novo, Paloma IV, Paloma Solar & Wind, Pegasus Resources, PetroLegacy, Silverado, and Verdun. He is a member of the American Petroleum Institute, the Houston Producers’ Forum, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and ADAM Houston.

Prior to joining EnCap, Mr. Kafka spent two years at First Albany Capital where he worked in the Energy Investment Banking Group.  Previously, Mr. Kafka began his career at Amegy Bank of Texas where he worked in the commercial banking department. Mr. Kafka received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from The University of Texas at Austin.

Bio coming soon!

Art Krasny is Managing Director and Head of Oil and Gas Finance.

Art has spent most of his 20-year banking career with Wells Fargo, primarily with the bank’s oil and gas platform. He started his career on the corporate banking side in Denver.

In 2012, Art moved to the investment banking side of the platform, where he continued to focus on the oil and gas industry, initially as a part of the Merger & Acquisitions group and later leading the A&D team.

Currently, Art is running the Oil & Gas Finance team, a part of the firm’s Energy & Power Corporate & Investment Bank. The team is focused on providing capital, as well as corporate and investment banking coverage primarily to the private upstream companies.

Over the years, Art has worked on a variety of advisory and financing assignments representing a spectrum of deal structures and asset classes.

Art earned a B.S. degree in physics from the St. Petersburg University in Russia.

Craig Lande, a managing director of RBC Richardson Barr, has more than 20 years of experience in the U.S. A&D market, involving company research, corporate and asset valuation, and business development. Prior to joining RBC Richardson Barr in 2005, Lande was with asset marketer Waterous & Co. as a vice president and was creator and editor of Quarterly Market Review, a newsletter focusing on upstream A&D valuations and trends. Previously, he was a senior analyst with energy investment-banking firm Cornerstone Ventures LP. He holds a B.S. in Business Management and Marketing from Tulane University.

Nicholas O'Grady has served as our Chief Executive Officer since January 2020. Since June 2018, Mr. O’Grady previously served as the Company’s Chief Financial Officer. He also held the title of President from September of 2019 until his promotion to CEO. Mr. O’Grady leads the Northern team in all respects of the business, including investments, financial management and business strategy. Mr. O’Grady has helped facilitate over $1.2 billion in acquisitions and $2.4 billion in gross financings during his tenure at Northern. Mr. O'Grady has nearly two decades of finance experience, both as an investment banker and as a principal investor. Mr. O'Grady began his career in the Natural Resources investment banking group at Bank of America. Later moving to the hedge fund industry, he worked at firms such as Highbridge Capital Management. Immediately prior to Northern, Mr. O’Grady worked at Hudson Bay Capital Management, where he focused on energy-related equities, public credit, private and direct investments. Mr. O'Grady holds a Bachelor of Arts in both History and Economics from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.

Jason Pigott joined Laredo in June 2019 and currently serves as President, Chief Executive Officer and Director. Mr. Pigott has more than 23 years of experience in the energy exploration and production industry, most recently serving as Executive Vice President - Operations and Technical Services for Chesapeake Energy where he led all drilling and completions operations, digital operations, supply chain and land efforts. Prior to joining Chesapeake in 2013, he was with Anadarko Petroleum for 14 years, serving in positions of increasing responsibility, focused primarily on onshore unconventional play development in the Eagle Ford Shale, Haynesville Shale, Delaware Basin and various tight-sand plays in East Texas. Mr. Pigott holds a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University and an MBA from the University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler School of Business.

Mr. Ray joined NGP in 2014 and serves as a Principal. He concentrates on NGP’s efforts in sourcing investments, transaction analysis, and execution as well as the monitoring of active portfolio companies. Prior to joining NGP, Mr. Ray was an investment banking analyst with Deutsche Bank’s Natural Resources Group in Houston, where he focused on financing and merger and acquisition transactions in the oil and gas industry. Mr. Ray received a B.B.A. in Finance in 2011 from The University of Texas at Austin.

Doug Reynolds joined the energy & power investment banking group at Piper Sandler® in 2020.

Previously, Reynolds was head of U.S. energy corporate and investment banking at Scotiabank. Prior to that, he was the head of U.S. upstream investment banking at a leading investment bank. He has led nearly $100 billion of merger, acquisition, divestiture and capital markets assignments in the energy industry across six continents and more than 30 countries during his career.

Reynolds earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Colgate University.

Danny Yick joined ConocoPhillips in 2013 and currently serves as Senior Director of Corporate A&D. In his current role Mr. Yick focuses on M&A, deal sourcing, structuring, material divestitures, subsurface technical and financial evaluations, legal/commercial negotiations, and leading cross-functional teams in the execution of oil and gas investments. 

Prior to joining ConocoPhillips, Mr. Yick held positions with increasing responsibility at Petro-Canada, Devon Energy, Nexen, TD Securities, Vermilion Energy in roles ranging from production engineer, drilling engineer, completions engineer, field rotation wells supervisor, reservoir engineer, institutional equity research associate analyst, and business development subsurface engineering professional. 

Mr. Yick started his oil and gas career in 2004 and has extensive experience in unconventional/conventional evaluations, mineral investments, midstream evaluations, international oil and gas properties, petroleum engineering, finance, capital markets, and commercial negotiations.  He holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Calgary and is a CFA® Charterholder.

George M. Young, Jr. has a long and successful history of developing companies and building value. Currently, Mr. Young serves as CEO of EnCap Minerals, LLC which was formed in 2021 after successfully merging Pegasus Resources with two other EnCap mineral platforms. EnCap Minerals is one of the largest privately held mineral companies in the Permian Basin. In addition Mr. Young serves as CEO of Pegasus Resources II, LLC, backed by EnCap and actively acquiring minerals and royalties in the Permian. Recently, Mr. Young served as a founding partner and CEO of Silverback Exploration, LLC which had successful exits in 2016 and 2017 and he currently serves as an advisor and investor in Silverback II. Additionally, Mr. Young has served as president and co-founder of Collins and Young, LLC, where he was instrumental in assembling more than 100,000 acres in the core Barnett Shale, negotiating a joint venture with Chief Oil and Gas, and ultimately monetizing the position.

Darin Zanovich currently serves as President and CEO of Mesa Minerals Partners II, LLC (“Mesa II”).   Darin founded Mesa II in May 2021 with an initial equity commitment of $150 million from NGP Natural Resources XI, L.P. and NGP Royalty Partners, L.P.  In July 2021, Mesa II closed on an acquisition from an undisclosed seller in the Haynesville shale play in North Louisiana for $110 million.  The asset consists of ~15,000 net royalty acres and 472 PDP wells with projected asset cash flow for the next twelve months of ~$30 million.

Prior to forming Mesa II, Darin served as President & CEO of Mesa Minerals Partners LLC, a Quantum Energy Partners backed mineral and royalty company focused in the Haynesville shale play.   The company successfully sold in December 2020 to Franco-Nevada Corporation for $135 million generating over a 2.5x return for its investors.

Prior to forming Mesa, Darin served on the Executive Management team at Haymaker Minerals & Royalties, LLC (“Haymaker”). Haymaker successfully sold the majority of its assets in 2018 for over $450 million in cash and stock generating over a 2.5x return for its investors.  

Additionally, Darin has also held executive management roles with Talisman Energy and Samson Resources in his career and has over twenty-four years of experience in oil and gas operations, land and business development, as well as over sixteen years in executive management roles with various upstream companies.