Energy LEAP has seen some changes on its Board of Directors for the new term, effective February 2022. Kathryn Upson, from BP, who has served as our Chair for the last three years, has stepped down.  We are thankful for Kathryn’s leadership and dedication and wish her much success in the future, and welcome James Light as the new BP representative.

Reflections from Kathryn Upson:

After 3 years as the Chair of Energy LEAP and 4 years as the bp representative, it is with mix emotions that I stand down and hand on the baton to Damon Echevarria as Chair and James Light as the bp representative.

 

The pandemic has made the past few years especially challenging for everyone and I am proud of how Energy LEAP has continued to evolve and deliver during this period. The past few years have reinforced the need to reduce our reliance on the physical handoff of paper documents, and the importance of finding new solutions to support the many digital and modernization agendas within our industry. The value of Energy LEAP as a safe, non-competitive environment, underpinned by a robust legal framework, is more valuable than ever, allowing companies to collaborate to develop solutions to common pain points.

 

Highlights for me over the past 3 years include:
• The publication of the Energy LEAP LOI standard in 2021
• A new focus on the ‘pre-digital’ space, in areas such as data definitions and standards for barges and seagoing vessels – and especially the barge webinar run by the team last year!
• The coming together of a great team of experts through Energy LEAP to share industry best practice in the area of KYC
• A new initiative covering key hybrid terms, bringing some much needed definition to this area of contract management

Initial Impressions from James Light:

Very excited to join a board of highly committed and passionate leaders that have championed a number of cross industry initiatives to modernize and optimise how we work.

New Board of Directors

• Chair – Damon Echevarria from Chevron. Damon is based in Houston, TX and is General Manager of Value Chain, Strategy & Commercial for S&T.

• Secretary – Jenny Sautreuil from TOTSA. Jenny is based in Geneva, Switzerland and is Business Excellence & Projects Manager, Trading & Shipping.

• Treasurer – Leslie Tague from Shell. Leslie is Customer Integration and Commercial Insights Manager for S&T and is based in Houston, TX.

• James Light from BP is based in London and is VP Strategic Implementation & Modernization, Refining & Products Trading.

Board Facilitation

• Programme Director – Peter Harvey, Drumaline Ltd, based in London

• Senior Coordinator – Joann Bonanno, based in New York