Rob Perry

Rob Perry

CEO and President

Upstream, Clean tech
 
United States, Brazil, Middle East, Europe, Africa

1. What is your profession? Or if you are retired, what was your profession?

CEO & President

2. What are your areas of expertise?

Upstream: Reservoir Engineering, Asset Management, Technology, General Management, Operations, Executive, Completions, Commercial, Sales, Project Management, Supply Chain, Marketing, Corporate Development, I.T./Digital

Upstream Areas: Offshore, Onshore

Clean Tech: Technology

Types of Clean Tech: CO2 capture

3. Current employer:

Reach Production Solutions

4. Previous employers:

TechnipFMC, BP, Family civil engineering business

5. How did you end up in the Energy Industry?

As part of my chemical engineering degree I worked in industry for a year - wanting a challenge and to fully exercise my new found chemical engineering muscles, I went to the R&D department of BP Chemicals - where I ended up designing and building a modular configurable distillation column made from zirconium. The best advice I received when given the project was that whatever I designed it would probably be wrong and zirconium was very expensive... After graduation, and whilst undertaking my MBA part time, I was faced with the choice to go into chemicals, refining or upstream - I ended up picking upstream given the incredible and complex business challenges, in addition to its own set of unique technical challenges - so it was an opportunity to meld both technical and business. Haven't looked back since and have been lucky enough to have had some amazing professional and personal experiences along the way whilst working with some incredible people...

6. Why do you like working with Start-Ups?

My passion is to grow or build something - I'm also curious about technology, and enjoy developing and bringing it to market. I find that Start-Ups provide the challenge of developing a strategy and then balancing the choreography of developing the technology at the same time as growing a business, within the context of significant change. It's like going to work and being paid to solve intriguing and interesting puzzles! And of course you get to do it with very interesting and smart people.

Okay, now for some fun things about Rob…

7. What are three of your interests outside of work?

  • Spending time with family

  • Car racing

  • Photography
    And to sneak in a 4th: Skiing

8.  What are your top 3 accomplishments (personal or professional)?  Don’t be shy!  Give ‘em to us.

  • Business turnarounds of established and Start-Up companies: eg taking an established business with $1bn revenue from a $100m p.a. loss to $25m p.a. profit.

  • Securing subsea multiphase pumps through a strategic alliance between FMC and Sulzer, and successfully developing the technology and entering the market with significant project wins against a very well established incumbent.

  • Jointly raising a daughter who has grown up with amazing values, thoughtfulness, and insights well beyond her years.

9.  If I were a superhero, my superpower would be               .

Figuring out how things and people tick and why...

10. When I was 5, I was pretty sure I'd be a                 when I grew up.

Race car driver or pilot - I've been lucky enough to do both for fun

11. If I weren't so damn good at what I do now, I'd probably be                 .

Starting up a micro-distillary

12.  My favorite song is               by            .

Eagles: "Hotel California"

13.  If I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd          .

Micro-distillery

14.  The best piece of advice I've ever been given is                              .

Two pieces of advice in exactly the same vein: "Do your best" my Dad, owner of his own business and "Whatever you do, create a work product that you would be proud of" my manager, President of BP Azerbaijan