WOMEN in Energy
Pursue diversity, inclusiveness with considerable sincerity of purpose - LAME VERRE Lame Verre, a petroleum economist with 20 years of experience working across the oil and gas industry value chain has worked in several geographical locations, currently she works with Halliburton as the Senior Regional Manager Treasury for Europe, Eurasia, and Sub-Saharan Africa (EESSA). In this interview with the Publisher, Orient Energy Review magazine, Nneka Ezeemo
on the sidelines of the Diversity and Inclusion Summit in London recently said that organizations and stakeholders in the industry should show commitment to the call for diversity and inclusiveness by designing strategic plans and policies that will address already identified pain points, barriers and challenges while new ones should be fixed as they emerge. Excerpts
Could you give a peep into your person and career journey? I’m a petroleum economist by background, and I currently run the Treasury function for credit and collections at Halliburton, I look after Europe, Eurasia and Sub-Saharan Africa region. I manage all of our customer financial relationships, with my team of eight spread across the region. We are responsible for managing account receivables and DSO; we make sure that the cash gets through the door. My 20 years in the industry has been predominantly upstream. I spent 15 years in upstream space with companies like ENI where I started my career in Milan and Lagos before moving to the UK and working for Sterling Energy and E.on before transitioning into upstream consulting with Baker Hughes (Gaffney, Cline & Associates) a service company. I then spent two years running my business post my MBA and a tour of Houston as you do when working in oil and gas. I have now spent the last two and a half years
in Halliburton running this function. You have a vast wealth of experience in the corporate setting, which is an excellent asset for private practice, so are you still running your business? My business came out of necessity. After over a decade years of being a petroleum economist, I got to that point where I had enough of doing the same thing even though I was growing in my capacity, scope of responsibilities and leading high functioning teams, it didn’t feel fulfilling enough, so I decided to go and do my MBA while also moving into consulting with Baker Hughes. I came out of my MBA programme right in the middle of the downturn. I was in Houston at the time. So, with the 2015 downturn walloping companies, all the expatriate’s contracts were cancelled. With the contract nullified in Houston, the UK role ceased to exist, and so I had to make a choice. At that time, my second son was on the way, so we waited and then we moved back to the UK after he was
ORIENT ENERGY REVIEW Vol.9 No. 06
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