Young Professionals SIG Meeting – March (Online)

PESGB members can register free of charge via the membership platform

If you are interested in becoming a member of PESGB please visit: https://www.ges-gb.org.uk/membership/

Speaker: Hamish Wilson – CEO, Lapis Energy

Topic: The New World of Creating an International Company

Lapis Energy was founded in the pandemic through bringing together an international team of experts entirely on zoom.  We formed a team, developed a product and raised significant funding from a Texas based private equity company without meeting face to face.   The concept of pulling together talent, wherever located is a powerful competitive edge.   Building a culture centred on self-management and trust have proved challenging and the company is still a ‘work in progress’, but we have started on a journey and learning as we go.

The talk will be split into four topics

1. The Lapis Story
   1. How it came about  (BluEnergy and Viridis) – founded in the pandemic and caused by the pandemic….
   2. The evolution of strategy
   3. The merger and pulling two teams together
   4. Fund raising
2. Sustainability and the core value proposition i.e. what do we do?

2. 1. Industrial decarbonisation
   2. Underground carbon dioxide sequestration
   3. The economics and carbon pricing  – creating ‘bankable’ projects
3. Values and Culture

3. 1. Building a culture on ‘zoom’ – none of us have met f2f as a full team yet!
   2. The power of bringing the best global talent to solve a problem wherever it is
   3. The challenge of establishing trust across the internet.
4. A new way of working

4. 1. A networked organisation
   2. Self-management – what does this mean?
   3. A purpose driven organisation with strong alignment to the overall reward structure
   4. Harnessing capitalism to do something right, feel good about it, and earn money

Speaker Biography
I am CEO of Lapis Energy.  Our purpose is to develop projects to decarbonise industry and to create a new asset class based around managing carbon dioxide and hydrogen.  We have created an exciting global team of talented geoscientists, engineers and market experts operating in a new virtual world enabled by video conferencing and the internet.

Our PE funder, Cresta Infrastructure funds, has supported us in our journey to create an integrated full cycle global carbon management company that takes projects from inception through development and onto operations.

My role is the culmination of 40 years in industry, starting out with BP as a geologist before running consultancies specializing in exploration, and then founding a renewable energy start up.

Having straddled both renewable energy and oil and gas has made me committed to bringing oil and gas geoscience and capital project disciplines to solving climate change.  Lapis Energy is the result and focuses these skills onto developing projects that take carbon emissions and sequesters these underground.

I am passionate about finding integrated solutions to solving climate change and in creating commercial structures that leverage the capital necessary to transform our economies for the low carbon future.

Outside of work, I am a fund holder with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Community Foundation focused on enabling high net worth individuals support local charities.  I have a particular interest in the lack of justice resulting from social deprivation and supporting disadvantaged families.  I am also a keen sailor and, with my wife Elin, love taking time out on our yacht Robin to cruise the world.