Presentations

John Thurmond is the Principal Advisor for Emerging Technology in Geoscience for Hess. John has more than twenty years of industry experience spanning from unconventional exploration to offshore production, but has always focused on meshing the latest technologies into real business needs. John holds a Ph.D. in Geoscience from the University of Texas at Dallas and has spent a career advancing industry understanding of diverse areas such as Source To Sink methodologies, artificial intelligence interpretation of seismic data, and the overlap between space and subsurface exploration. He is passionate about how we learn from failure, and would love to hear your stories about that.

Jim Grant is Vice President of Subsurface for Chesapeake Energy at the company’s Oklahoma City headquarters. In this role he is responsible for all geoscience and reservoir engineering across the company’s portfolio. Since joining Chesapeake in 2017, Mr. Grant has played an important role in the transformation of the company, with a keen focus on building an efficient and effective culture focusing on technical excellence and interdisciplinary collaboration. Mr. Grant has served in various leadership, corporate and technical roles throughout his career at Chesapeake and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, where he worked prior to joining Chesapeake. Mr. Grant’s background spans the E&P value chain. His past positions include Director of Exploration and Geoscience Technology; Exploration Manager roles spanning West and South Africa, the South Atlantic Margin and the Asia Pacific region; and technical roles as a geoscientist across U.S. onshore and Southeast Asian basins. Corporate roles have included Worldwide Exploration Planning Manager and Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Grant holds a BA in geology from Hamilton College, a MS in geology from the University of Idaho, and an MBA from Rice University, where he was a Jones Scholar Award recipient.

Kim leads OSDU Data Platform activities for Amazon Web Services, responsible for managing commercial business development, deployments, and support for AWS’s global Energy customers. AWS’s OSDU offerings deliver valuable, secure solutions that reduce customer cost and risk with a single interoperable repository for all subsurface data -- enabling innovative subsurface analysis through machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Kim has 15+ years of international project and operational experience, working in roles of increasing complexity and scale from new technology solutions for AWS Energy to leading major Oil & Gas Operator projects (career portfolio of US$50B+) in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Kim earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Mississippi. She is a member of SPE.

Sean is a partner with energy technology VC firm Altira Group in Denver, through which he serves or has served a Director for seven firms. Pror to that he was a Principal in the Energy Practice at Booz and Company and CEO of an energy tech startup. Sean has an MBA and a BSCE Engineering, both from the University of Texas at Austin.

Anna is the Director of Engineering at Ivaldi Group, a startup based in San Leandro California, aiming to disrupt the supply chain by helping companies shift to digital distribution. Anna manages the company's project portfolio and quality management system focused on process improvement. She ensures quality in products and processes through defining and confirming engineering requirements for new product development. She has been the project manager for multiple joint innovation projects to advance certification requirements for critical parts produced through additive manufacturing.