UK-based oil major BP is expanding its corporate venturing unit and its remit so that it covers the company’s core business of petroleum extraction as well as clean technology and energy.
Justin Adams (pictured), head of emerging business and ventures at BP’s Alternative Energy division, will leave next month to initially act as a consultant to venture funds.
He said: "After building the team and absolutely loving the job I want to see how we can use innovation for transformative change." Corporations clearly had a critical role in this, Adams added, but could find it difficult to carry out transformative change using in-house venturing units.
After his departure, as well as the earlier retirement of the John Steedman, who remains an adviser, the re-named BP Ventures team will be bigger with a number of new promotions and hires.
Dominic Emery will take on the new title of chief development officer alongside his previous role as chief of staff at BP Alternative Energy. Issam Dairanieh will become global head of BP Ventures from his US office with Meghan Sharp joining in America, Akira Kirton to cover Europe and South Asia and Bocken Qin to manage deals in China. Guy Mason is commercial head as well as chief financial officer and chief operating officer.
Adams, who will be a keynote speaker at the Global Corporate Venturing Symposium on May 15 in London, started what is now BP Ventures in 2006 under the then-new Alternative Energy division. BP Ventures has invested more than $150m in 29 deals in the past six years across three areas – bioenergy, electrification and carbon capture and trading – including GMZ Energy, Mendel Biotechnology, Xtreme Power and the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), as well as the EKO Green Carbon Fund.
BP Alternative Energy has concentrated its project finance investments in biofuels and wind having sold its solar portfolio and BP is looking to its Ventures unit to help with its core business as well as find potentially transformative clean-energy opportunities.
These core sectors include finding biomass to be used in its refinery, lubricants, water for processing and technology for drilling and imaging of oil reservoirs.
Dairanieh and Mason said: "We are keeping our enthusiasm for clean-tech but expanding to core technology at the heart of BP."