David Hayes and Ignacio Gimenez have been promoted to managing partner at BP Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the eponymous oil major.
The new role is part of a shift under Meghan Sharp, the new global head of BP Ventures and vice-president for the company’s “innovation engine” being developed to “support the technical and commercial capabilities necessary to grow new businesses for BP in our journey to net zero”.
Sharp had returned to BP Ventures towards the end of last year, having left in 2019 to become chief operating officer at portfolio company Beyond Limits.
A GCV Powerlist 2020 award winner, Hayes had spent nearly 18 months as chief investment officer and managing director for the Americas at BP Ventures and is on the boards of Xpansiv CBL Holding Group (XCHG), Fulcrum Bioenergy and Calysta.
He had started as an analyst around the time BP Ventures was being formally created towards the end of the 2000s.
Gimenez was promoted from managing director for Europe and Middle East at BP Ventures, having joined in mid-2017. He sits on the boards of Finite Carbon, Voltaware, Fotech Solutions and Grid Edge.
Hayes said: “Nacho Gimenez and I are joined by Daniela Proske, Erin Hallock, Sophia Nadur and Chad Bown as managing partners as BP Ventures reinvents the group to better serve BP as we aim to reimagine energy for people and the planet.”
BP Ventures is a strategic investor in the energy space and has invested more than $650m over the past 12 years in about 45 companies, more recently at about $150m per year.
The corporate venturing unit invests in technologies relevant to its core business, as well as in support of:
– Bio and low carbon products
– Low carbon power
– Carbon management
– Digital transformation
– Advanced mobility.
BP has been selling down its traditional petroleum-focused products to focus more on energy built on a net-zero carbon emissions.
BP promoted Akira Kirton, a former GCV Rising Stars award winner, to vice-president of new business execution at its future mobility and solutions (FMS) division at the start of the month after he completed the sale of the acetyls business to Ineos for $5bn.
The current FMS portfolio includes BP Pulse (formerly Chargemaster in the UK), the BP-Didi joint venture in China, a business in Germany and a large portfolio of venture investments, such as Drover, Freewire, Lightning Motors, Peloton, Mass Global, Nio Capital, Powershare, Storedot and Zubie.
By email, Kirton said: “I will be working a lot with Meghan/David and with Daniela [Proske] and Shaun [Healey] in [BP] Ventures. Already looking at some deals as you can imagine.”
Note: Story updated for Gimenez’s promotion and Hayes’s quote
