Natural Resources >> CEO Interviews >> December 7, 2009
Ray Leonard joined Hyperdynamics as President and Chief Executive Officer in July 2009. Mr. Leonard was born in New York, of a family of Ukrainian ancestry. He received a Bachelor of Science in geology from the University of Arizona and a Master of Arts in geology from the University of Texas at Austin. His 19-year career with Amoco was entirely associated with international projects. Initial assignments were in Trinidad, Norway and West Africa. In 1989 he was appointed Amoco's Director of New Ventures for the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China. He was in a unique position to view the political and economic changes taking place. In 1995, he was appointed Vice President for Resource Acquisitions, Amoco Eurasia. In June 199, he accepted a position as Exploration Vice President for First International Oil Company), a newly formed company in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He accepted a position as Vice President-Exploration and New Ventures in Moscow for YUKOS, the second largest Russian oil company, in January 2001, with responsibility for diversifying the YUKOS upstream portfolio out of the core areas of West Siberia and Samara specifically to East Siberia, the Russian Shelf and Central Asia, and concluding partnership agreements with non-Russian companies. Profile
TWST: Let's begin with a brief overview of Hyperdynamics, including the company's history and activities.
Mr. Leonard: Hyperdynamics (HDY), as you can tell from the name, did not start out as an oil
