Featured Members

Lauren Wilder is a Manager, Latin America for Repsol’s Latin America Business Development group located in Houston, Texas. Since joining Repsol in August 2014, Lauren has structured and negotiated a number of upstream oil and gas transactions in Latin America and the Caribbean. During the spring of 2015, Wilder was based in Calgary as a … Continue reading “Lauren Wilder”

Dario G. Lamanna is an Argentinian Attorney. He has an LLM in Oil and Gas Law and an MBA in Business Administration. He holds Degrees in the Senior Management Program (PAD), and in the Management Development Program (PDD), as well as the CICA executive program at IPADE Business School, Pan-American University. He specializes in oil … Continue reading “Dario Lamanna”

Kim Talus is a Professor of European Economic and Energy Law at University of Eastern Finland Law School and the Director of the Center for Climate Change, Energy and Environmental Law. He also serves as a Professor of Energy Law at the University of Helsinki. In January of 2018, Talus will join Tulane University as … Continue reading “Kim Talus”

Bellanne (“Belle”) Meltzer Toren, B.A.S., J.D., ICD.D has more than 32 years of experience in the petroleum industry and has worked as a general counsel as well as a lawyer (admitted in Texas and Alberta) or negotiator on projects in over 21 countries. She obtained her ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors in … Continue reading “Belle Toren”

João Verne Oliveira is a Portuguese/Angolan legal counsel supporting BP’s upstream activities in Angola and in other African countries. João focuses his activities in upstream contracts and in providing support to BP’s tax and procurement & supply chain management teams. João holds a degree in Law from the University of Lisbon, an LL.M in Energy, … Continue reading “João Verne Oliveira”

Kelli Kachur is an Australian Solicitor in the M&A, joint venture, projects, and equity space. She is the founder and Managing Director of Kachur Legal – a law firm based in Western Australia that offers on-demand and virtual legal services to in-house counsel and other law firms in the oil, gas and energy industry. … Continue reading “Kelli Kachur”

Michael Polkinghorne is a civil and common law qualified lawyer, head of the arbitration group at White & Case LLP in Paris and joint-head of the firm’s oil and gas practice. He has during his career lived in Australia, England, Vietnam, Thailand and France. He has served as counsel and arbitrator in disputes arising … Continue reading “Michael Polkinghorne”

Shakwa Nyambe is a Namibian specialized energy lawyer and the Managing Director at the law firm Shakwa Nyambe & Company Inc. Shakwa Nyambe & Company Inc. is a law firm with headquarters in Windhoek, Namibia solely dedicated to serving clients in the energy and natural resources sector. Shakwa holds a postgraduate degree of Masters … Continue reading “Shakwa Nyambe”

Jaime Bacud (‘’Jimmy’’) has recently assumed the position of Vice President for Upstream Operations in PNOC Exploration Corporation (PNOC EC), the oil, gas and coal subsidiary of the state-owned Philippine National Oil Company. PNOC EC is mandated by the Philippine government to take the lead in the exploration, development and production of the country’s oil, … Continue reading “Jaime Bacud (‘’Jimmy’’)”

Alexandra Rotar is an associate at the Moscow office of Morgan Lewis. Alexandra focuses on providing legal advice to companies investing and operating in the Russian and CIS oil and gas, power, renewable energy, metals and mining, and natural resource sectors. Over the past ten years, she represented clients on significant transactions in the … Continue reading “Alexandra Rotar”

Ha is a partner in VILAF’s Energy Practice Group and regularly counsels Fortune 500 clients in many of Vietnam’s largest acquisitions, concession right negotiations, project development and financing works, disputes, and regulatory audits and controversies. His works often involve complex and demanding legal, political, and diplomatic considerations. He has been instrumental in the formation and … Continue reading “Luu Hoang Ha”

Kelly Ripley completed a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish in 2001, Master of Science in Accountancy in 2002 from the University of Houston and a Juris Doctor from South Texas College of Law in 2007. She is a former certified public accountant and licensed attorney in the State of Texas. She began her career with … Continue reading “Kelly Ripley”

Elena Bolonina is a third-year law student at South Texas College of Law Houston graduating in May 2020. She is the Vice-President of AIPN’s Student Club at South Texas College of Law Houston and a member of AIPN’s Young Negotiators group. Elena was awarded an AIPN Scholarship for 2019-2020 and TYLA Diversity Scholarship first place … Continue reading “Elena Bolonina”

Is an LLM Candidate from the North Sea Energy Law Program. Among other international institutions that have hosted Isaac, he has done research in International Investment Protection and Unitization of Oil and Gas fields in the Aberdeen University Centre for Energy Law (Scotland) and the Scandinavian institute of Maritime Law (Norway), respectively. Isaac specializes in … Continue reading “Isaac De León”

Is a Commercial Advisor with ExxonMobil. Ken started his career with Anadarko in the Land Department, eventually moving to commercial roles on various projects in the U.S., Africa, and Latin America. Ken then moved to ExxonMobil, joining their business development group. He has also taught International Petroleum Transactions as an Adjunct Professor at South Texas … Continue reading “Ken Rice”

Heike Trischmann earned a BSc/MSc in Biology from the University of Leipzig, Germany, and a PhD in Biotechnology/Bioengineering from the Academy of Sciences, Berlin, Germany. She became a legal practitioner in England and Wales in 2001. Heike is now a partner in the corporate group of Watson Farley & Williams, London. She works in … Continue reading “Heike Trischmann”