Ivan is founder and former CEO of Sierra Oil and Gas, one the most successful E&P stories worldwide in recent years, and the company that lead and participates in the award-winning Zama discovery.  Prior to this, Ivan held a number or entrepreneurial, leadership and corporate roles such as: Co-head of the global oil and gas emerging markets practice for EY in London, President of Energy Intelligence (the oldest oil and gas information service in the world), Vice President of Corporate and Upstream Strategy and Business Development at Statoil (Equinor), head of oil supply at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), investment banker at Merrill Lynch and exploration geologist at BP.   During his career Ivan also held various roles at different starts ups in Latin America (Petra Energia in Brazil, Pan Andean Resources in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia).

Ivan is an active member of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES), the Oxford Energy Policy Club, trustee of the Energy Policy Research Foundation (EPRINC) at Washington D.C. and a regular guest at the Global Business Policy Council of ATKearney.  Ivan’s academic activities include co-founder and guest lecturer at the Executive Energy MBA program at Wirtschaftsuniversität (WU) in Vienna, lecturer at the Executive Energy Program at ITAM, Mexico’s leading university, authorship of over 20 research papers, and co authorship of Mexico’s most recent book on the “History of Exploration, its Amazing Carbonates and Untapped Oil Potential”.  Ivan holds a BSc in Geology from Baylor University, an MSc and MBA from Edinburgh University and attended the Berkeley Executive Leadership Program in Stanford.