Meet The Board

Beth Anderson Gillard brings over 25 years of experience in wells, drilling, business development, and digital solutions. She holds an MBA in Oil and Gas Management from Robert Gordon University and is widely recognised for her strengths in client relationship management, strategic account development, and project planning. Beth has contributed to industry dialogue and collaboration, most recently by serving as Chair of the SPE Well Decommissioning Conference 2025.

Stewart is Managing Director of McIntosh Technical Ltd, an independent Artificial Lift Consultancy. He has almost 20 years experience in the oil and gas industry. Initially starting his career with Schlumberger and working in various locations in Russia, Europe, Africa and the UKCS providing Field Service for ESPs. He then moved into Surveillance and Monitoring where he helped develop remote monitoring, creating the blueprint for what is done today. He then progressed into Applications Engineering and Project Management delivering high value, HPHT projects.

Today, Stewart works with closely with Artificial Lift Solutions Pte Ltd and many operator clients around the globe providing expert assistance from FEED, Project management and delivery, installation support and supervision, to Production Optimization of ESPs.

Stewart is a great believer in the STEM programme and is actively following the Energy Transition.

Diane is the SPE Aberdeen Section Manager, an SPE member since 2009, previously being the Secretary to the Board of the Aberdeen Section. She sits on the organising committee for the Offshore Achievement Awards and the Schools Career Guidance committee. With a background in science, a STEM ambassador and a published author of 12 scientific papers, Diane is passionate about encouraging the younger generation to study STEM subjects and join the Oil and Gas Industry. Diane previously worked at the Society of the Chemical Industry for 14 years, as Scotland Coordinator, in the corporate and membership development team, and as an electron microscopist at the Rowett Research Institute prior to that.

Lorraine has worked in Accounting since leaving school almost 30 years ago, working either full time or part time whilst bringing up her family. After many years as an employee, she took the plunge 5 years ago and set up her own bookkeeping business. Lorraine became the SPE Aberdeen Bookkeeper at the beginning of 2015 and in 2017 also became the Section Treasurer. She thoroughly enjoys the work she does with SPE Aberdeen and is also excited to have recently joined the Executive Committee for the Offshore Achievement Awards.

Colin Black, FEI , Section Director

Colin is the Managing Director of Technology Deployment Services Company Carjon-NRG.com, TechnologyCatalogue.com UK Partner and passionate STEM Ambassador. With over 42 years’ experience in Oil, Gas & Energy, he has deployed innovative technologies in Offshore & Onshore locations internationally, managed operations & business development in high growth companies and became Managing Director & Vice President OPTIMA, a TETRA Company. For 32 years Colin has also supported many conferences & exhibitions to share knowledge by establishing industry challenges and helping the organisers identify relevant abstracts, case studies and informative technology presentations, he is also the co-inventor of numerous patents.

He is a Contractor Advisory Council member of Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), former Vice Chair of OEUK Led NSTA Efficiency Task Force (ETF), OAA judge, committee member of Energy Institute, AHI branch, created & chaired “NASA in Aberdeen” a collaborative Schools education project.

For his international voluntary work “Inspiring the Next Generation”, in 2017, Colin received an SPEI “Distinguished Service Award” & became a “Distinguished Member” of SPE, in 2018 he was appointed a www.globalscot.com by the Scottish Government and in 2020 he received an “Award of Council” from the Energy Institute. In 2022, he also created “NASA Explorers – Inspiring the Next Generation” to further support pupils around the world reach their “Positive Destinations” and in 2023, Colin received The Offshore Achievements Awards “Significant Contribution Award”.

With over 25 years’ industry experience, Elliot began his career in an engineering apprenticeship, while working for Petroleum Engineering Services. His work encompassed several years offshore in the global oil and gas industry, specialising in well intervention and advanced completion technology, as well as involvement in installation and commissioning projects. Taking a year out in 2011, Elliot completed his masters in Oil and Gas Enterprise Management at the University of Aberdeen, allowing him access to many innovative, global technology companies, which in turn helped develop his career path. Latterly, Elliot was UK Business Development Manager for an international service company, providing technologies from wellbore construction right through to plug and abandonment.

His extensive industry experience has been invaluable in his success as co-chair of the SPE’s Communications and Schools Career Guidance committees for the last eight years. During this time he has led engagement projects with youngsters, teachers and career advisers.

For the past 18 months, Elliot has been at the forefront of evolutionary industry advancements as Sentinel Subsea’s co-founder and business development director. The company deploys innovative patented energy technologies which are ground-breaking in their ability to monitor suspended and abandoned wells.

Graham is the Group Business Development Director with ABL Group in Aberdeen. ABL is a global consultancy group of companies delivering technical solutions to drive safety and sustainability in renewables, maritime and oil & gas sectors. Graham has worked in engineering for decades, with close to 30 years in energy sectors.

He started his career as a Mechanical Technician Apprentice in a precision engineering firm but quickly transferred to equipment design and subsequently into oil and gas specialising in subsea and surface completion systems design. In 2003 Graham made the move from engineering to sales and business development and has worked for a range of service providers from SME and start-ups to multi-nationals in a variety of areas such as drilling, completions, subsea installation and construction, facilities and decommissioning.

Graham was Section Chair from 2021-23, Vice Chair 2019-21, spent 4 years as Chair/VC of the Continuing Education Committee, and was Chair of the SPE International Membership Committee from 2021-23. In addition to the SPE, Graham is an active participant and volunteer with several industry and non-industry bodies past and present such as LOGIC, DecomMission, EIC, Step Change in Safety. Graham is also a STEM ambassador, participates in various mentoring and coaching programmes, and Vice Chair of his local Community Council.

Graham Skinner is Health & Safety Manager, for Offshore Energies UK and is responsible for the management of health and safety issues while fostering collaboration between members to enhance offshore safety in the UK. This role also includes aviation safety, local resilience, and security matters. Graham is a Chartered Engineer and member of the Energy Institute.

Graham’s start in the energy industry came with a drilling contractor and led to roles in the Middle East and Africa on land rigs and mobile offshore drilling units. During this time, he took on varied roles from drilling operations management to safety and risk management. Moving in 2013 to the UK Health and Safety Executive he regulated the safety of offshore well engineering and operations within the UK as a Specialist Inspector during which time he investigated high potential incidents, inspected well designs and well integrity management systems. Graham joined OEUK in February 2023 and has been busy developing strategies for emerging industry issues such as Process Safety Leadership and Maintenance Backlog reduction.

Ian has over 30 years’ experience in the upstream oil and gas industry, including 18 years with oil operating companies (Shell, BP, Marathon and Ramco) and 6 years with a major service company (Halliburton). He worked up from being a reservoir engineer involved in exploration and field development projects to being a Project Director responsible for full field development programmes.

In 2007 he became a founding Director of CO2DeepStore Limited, one of the first companies specifically seeking to provide the service of CO₂capture, transportation and deep geological storage to alleviate the worst effects of climate change. In late 2014 he became the Chief Executive of OGIC – the Oil and Gas Innovation Centre – a Scottish government backed research funding agency that is entirely demand-led. OGIC provides grants to support company-led research and development in Scottish Universities. In March 2020 he joined Pale Blue Dot Energy as the Project Director for the Acorn low carbon and hydrogen and CCS project planned for the St Fergus gas plant north of Aberdeen – an early Energy Transition project.

He obtained an MEng in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot Watt University in 1983 and an MBA through the Open University in 1994. He is also a Fellow of the UK Energy Institute and a Chartered Petroleum Engineer.

Ian has been a Director of the Aberdeen Section of SPE since 1986 and has served as Treasurer, Continuing Education Chairman and as Section Chair for 4 years. Since 2012 he has chaired the Offshore Achievement Awards Committee. Ian has also served as North Sea Regional Director on the SPE International Board and as a Director of SPE Europe Limited. Ian was appointed as the current chair of the section in December 2015.

Kenny is Managing Director of Seal-Tite UK LLC where he leads this well integrity business’ interests in Europe, The Middle East and Africa. He holds a BSc in Applied Physics from the University of Strathclyde and MSc in Information Technology from the University of York. He began his career as a Research Scientist and Product Development Project Leader with large chemical multinational. Since then he has spent over 20 years involved in the development and commercialisation of new well and near-well technology. He has been involved in new technology developments in electronic downhole gauges, fibre optic downhole measurement, intelligent completion, multi-phase metering, innovations in software based fiscal metering, completions hardware and well integrity solutions. He is passionate about the science and art of new technology adoption.

After completing his apprenticeship in the shipyards of the Clyde, Steve studied mechanical engineering whilst working in Edinburgh. In 1981 Steve joined Vetco Offshore and worked on wellheads, production trees and well tieback systems. Steve worked in the engineering office and offshore, installing the equipment in the field. Steve became supervisor for offshore support and, after a period in the training school as an instructor, he returned to the field to run the first trees West of Shetland on the Foinaven field.Steve joined Arco British and drilled a series of exploration wells West of Shetland. After moving to Conoco, Steve drilled a number of production wells in the Central North Sea, before moving to production engineering and running completion systems in conventional and HPHT wells. Steve was promoted to Chief Engineer and during this time the Macondo incident occurred. Steve joined the OSPRAG group and was assigned to the Global industry response group (GIRG) and set up the wells expert committee of IOGP. This group made a number of recommendations which have now been accepted and implemented by the industry; OPRAG nationally and IOGP internationally. Steve then moved to a well decommissioning group and initiated the SNS well abandonment project for ConocoPhillips. After taking an early retirement, Steve remains active in the SPE, ISO and IMechE and is working to develop new industry standards and industry collaboration.

Steve has been part of the SPE Aberdeen Board for over 10 years.

Farhan’s roles in BP have allowed him to build digital capabilities along with Reservoir/Petroleum Engineering competencies.

Farhan holds an Undergraduate and a Master's degree from Aberdeen University and IFP School respectively. Some of his prior volunteering experiences include SPE student chapters, BP DE&I committee, podcast and newsletter compilations.

Farhan enjoys travelling, reading and exploring different cultures and cuisines. He is fascinated by history, art, nature and wildlife and can speak 3 and a half languages. 

His experience covers:

Technology

• Coding, development, and deployment of toolkits
• Application of RE skills to lead simulation-based projects

Production & Operations

• Lead production forecasts
• Deliver infill, interventions, start-up and wellwork support
• Manage and reconcile short/long-term field management and surveillance
• Lead RE input for reservoir depositional understanding

Amarachi is a Senior Energy Technology and Digital Systems Engineer at CypherCrescent with over a decade of experience delivering advanced technology solutions in the upstream oil and gas sector. She specialises in digital transformation, project and product management, production intelligence, machine learning and AI systems, and enterprise data platform delivery supporting operations and engineering workflows across upstream environments.

Amarachi has led technology commercialisation, digital, and AI-enabled system deployments for operators and national programmes, such as NNPC Research & Technology Innovation and SEPLAT–NCDMB National Digitalisation Initiative. Her work bridges petroleum data management, enterprise IT, and advanced analytics, helping engineering teams deploy production-critical systems under real operational constraints.

She holds an MSc in Petroleum Data Management (Distinction) from the University of Aberdeen and a BEng in Gas Engineering from the University of Port Harcourt, and has contributed peer-reviewed technical papers to SPE NAICE, EAGE, ML4EO and DEVEX conferences, focusing on machine learning in petroleum workflows, emissions analytics, and digital transformation.

Outside her technical work, Amarachi has represented Nigeria as a national chess player and continues to contribute to professional mentoring and community initiatives.

Yeisson is currently a Project Engineer at Sparrows Group, working on different projects of specialist engineering, inspection, operations and maintenance services to the UK offshore energy and renewable industry.

Previous professional experience includes being the R&D Subsea Project Engineer for an integrated flow assurance company, joining Petronas as a sponsored overseas talent in Malaysia and working at Indra on an information technology project for Ecopetrol, the Colombian National Oil Company.

Before starting his current position, Yeisson gained an MSc in Subsea Engineering from the University of Aberdeen and a BSc in Petroleum Engineering from the National University of Colombia – Medellin Campus.

Yeisson joined the SPE Aberdeen Section in 2017, helping to organise the Simplified Series events since 2019, and recently he has been appointed as the new Vice-Chair of the Young Professionals (YP) Committee. He has been an active SPE member for almost 14 years, since 2009, when he joined as a volunteer at the SPE UnalMed Student Chapter and later as the YP Chair for the SPE Colombian Section.

Grace Uyanwanne is a recent MSc Drilling and Well Engineering graduate from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. She has gained experience through roles with ABL Group and Halliburton, where she supported asset integrity projects, wireline operations, pipeline services, and carbon capture studies. Grace has also led as President of the SPE Aberdeen RGU Student Chapter.

In her current roles with SPE, she supports early-career engagement as Co-Chair of the Student Development Committee and is leading the Early Careers Professionals session at the CO₂ Storage Conference. Passionate about energy transition and carbon storage, she is building a career at the intersection of engineering, integrity management, and sustainable energy solutions.

James is a Senior Well Intervention Engineer with bp, where he has worked in a variety of Wells Engineering roles over the last 12 years. He has worked across bp’s entire North Sea portfolio and currently leads a team delivering Hydraulic Fracture Stimulation and coiled tubing operations on Clair and Clair Ridge.

His career over 18 years has spanned across supermajor and independent operators in the UKCS with experience across the wells lifecycle, from exploration and appraisal drilling, completions, well intervention and well abandonment experience – in both onshore and offshore roles including in safety critical roles.

James holds a MEng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Aberdeen and is a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Prior to becoming Co-Vice Chair of the Student Development Committee SPE, James has sat on the committee for several years supporting the Student Bursary Awards as a judge.

In addition to his work with SPE, James is a dedicated mentor, volunteer, and STEM advocate. He has served as a STEM Ambassador, supported events such as TechFest, helped engineers progress towards Chartership, acted as a Professional Review Interviewer with IMechE, and provided mentoring and careers guidance with Career Ready and as a Career Mentor at the University of Aberdeen.

Tatiana Lezama is a Technical Authority for Organic Oil Recovery (OOR) at Hunting PLC based in Aberdeen, UK. In her current role, she supports OOR projects globally, working with operators and multidisciplinary teams to optimize production performance and implement innovative recovery technologies. Her work involves providing technical guidance, supporting operations, and helping customers evaluate and apply OOR solutions across a range of field environments globally.

Tatiana's career spans both Mexico and the United Kingdom, with experience across service companies, operating companies, research, and technology development. She began her career with Halliburton in Mexico, where she worked as a Reservoir Logging Analyst supporting offshore exploration and production activities through production logging and pressure transient analysis. She later joined PEMEX Exploration and Production as a Production Engineer in the Delta del Grijalva asset, where she was involved in production surveillance, well performance analysis, forecasting, and the planning of well interventions. These roles provided valuable experience in field operations and reservoir performance management.

After moving to the United Kingdom, Tatiana completed both an MSc and a PhD in Petroleum Engineering at the University of Aberdeen. Her doctoral research focused on improving oil-water separation in environmentally friendly surfactant systems, with an emphasis on reducing chemical consumption and improving process efficiency through the use of magnetic nanoparticles. She has contributed to several technical publications and SPE papers in the areas of emulsion treatment, production optimization, and enhanced oil recovery.

Prior to her current position, she worked as a Project Engineer within Hunting's OOR business, supporting projects and offshore operations across the Western Hemisphere.

As Co Vice-Chair of the SPE Student Development Committee, Tatiana is passionate about supporting students and early-career professionals as they transition into the energy industry. She enjoys contributing to initiatives that encourage professional growth, networking, mentorship, and engagement between academia and industry. Drawing on her international experience in both Mexico and the UK, she is committed to helping students develop the skills and confidence needed for successful careers in the evolving energy sector.

Renata Halim is an energy leader with more than 15 years of experience delivering value across operations, major capital projects, sustainability, and organisational leadership within the energy sector.

Currently as HSSE Manager for Operated Assets at Adura, she works closely with asset leadership teams to integrate risk management, operational performance, regulatory strategy, and business objectives. Her career has spanned offshore production operations, major North Sea developments, environmental stewardship, governance, and energy transition initiatives, providing a broad perspective across both project and operational environments.

Renata is particularly passionate about developing future leaders and creating inclusive, high-performing cultures. As Chair of the SPE Aberdeen People & Culture Committee, she leads initiatives focused on professional development, diversity and inclusion, mentoring, and volunteer engagement across the Aberdeen Section.

She holds master's degrees from Imperial College London and the University of Gdansk and has completed postgraduate studies in Strategic Analysis for the Energy Sector and Strategic Leadership at Robert Gordon University. Combining technical expertise with a strong focus on governance, people leadership, and organisational performance, Renata is passionate about helping individuals and organisations navigate complexity, develop future talent, and create lasting value.

Gabriela is a strategic and results-driven business partner leading global operations with a strong focus on performance, innovation, and sustainability. Accountable for delivering high-quality products and services through effective planning, equipment maintenance, and process optimization. Champion of digital transformation, standardization, and automation, including the successful implementation of a Repair & Maintenance Management System and predictive maintenance initiatives.

Key contributor to business-critical decisions and performance improvements, driving initiatives that enhance Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), reduce asset cycle time, and lower CO₂ emissions through condition-based maintenance and operational efficiency.

Leads continuous improvement programs across product line, focusing on cost reduction, digitalization, and novel technologies that align with environmental and operational goals. Actively involved in mentoring and talent development, promoting knowledge sharing and diversity across the industry.

Leader and technical contributor in international organizations such as the IADC and API technical committees for review and establishment of new industry standards.

Advocate for Diversity & Inclusion across the industry, leading initiatives focused on mentoring, knowledge-sharing, and fostering equitable opportunities that drive inclusive growth.

15 years Oil & Gas experience within both Operator & Service Companies. On a learning journey around people strategy for Energy Transition projects. Diversity & Inclusion champion and ally with an in-depth knowledge of developing and embedding D&I strategies in the UK. Elizabeth is an innovative and strategic equality, diversity & inclusion disruptor who has a drive and passion for creating and delivering strategies and programmes to level the playing field for all. I look forward to actively shaping the SPE Aberdeen Sector inclusive culture with strong influencing skills and ability to motivate team delivery.

I enjoy such a critical leadership role; that requires a thoughtful, collaborative, and agile approach. I am very privileged with the prospect of delivering on the strategic SPE direction impacting people within and beyond the walls of engineering transitioning to Net Zero.

I have the support of an amazing diverse team who are committed to making a difference in all we do within the SPE Aberdeen Section and our wider community.

Anna Maclaren leads the marketing and communications for Energy Transition Zone Ltd, an organisation focused on repositioning the North East of Scotland to become a global leader in net zero. In her role across multiple industry committees, she passionately champions and represents young professionals in the energy industry, ensuring their voices shape a successful and inclusive energy transition. With a strong background in marketing and communications, Anna combines strategic insight with creativity to foster positive change in the energy sector. Her dedication to sustainability and innovation characterises her leadership, making Anna a passionate advocate who strives to shape the industry's future.

"I am excited to chair the SPE Aberdeen Marketing and Membership Committee, alongside Gaby and the wider team. There is so much opportunity to showcase and celebrate the successes of SPE Aberdeen, sharing these achievements across Aberdeen and beyond. Through highlighting our diverse activities and engagements, our aim for the committee is to connect a wide range of audiences across the industry and grow our community to share all of the chapters inspiring energy stories."