Board of Directors

Thomas Anderson MBA, Non-executive Chairman
Mr. Anderson has over twenty five years direct executive experience involved in running a private group in the leisure, entertainment, advertising, forestry and property development business in Ireland.  He has focused on risk management, corporate finance and portfolio diversification.  After graduating in Commerce and Economics, he subsequently completed a Master of Business Administration Degree at University College Dublin.  He joined Circle as Non-executive Chairman in April 2004.

David Joseph Hough, Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Hough, a co-founder of the company in 2003, is an explorationist with over thirty years experience.  He was Chief Executive of Ivernia West, Inc. from 1988 to 2003.  In 1990, his team discovered the Lisheen zinc lead mine, the sixth largest in the world, which was developed with partner Anglo American at a cost of $350 million, achieving its first production in 1999.  David is practiced in management and financing in the natural resource sectors of the London, Toronto and Dublin Stock Exchanges.

John Philip McKeon, Business Development and Marketing Director
Mr. McKeon has spent over fifteen years in stockbroking, corporate finance, property and project finance.  He has been a lead manager of private equity and institutional dealing teams, successfully raising funs for several Official List, AIM and Irish and internationally listed companies.  he has experience in international mergers and acquisitions, debt restructuring and corporate advisory services and he recently acted as a principal in the European NBO of circa $600 million European infrastructure assets, formerly part of Metro Media Fibre Networks Inc. and the subsequent reverse takeover by a listed Singaporean group.

Professor Chris Green, Non-executive Director
Professor Green is an explorationist and qualified Geophysicist with over thirty years industry experience including twenty four years at Shell, the oil major, where he held various senior positions leaving in 1998 as a Principal Geophysicist and a Global Shell Group Advisor. From 1998 to 2001 Professor Green was the Director of Strategic Development and Geosciences at Racal Electronics Plc, from 2001 to 2004 he was the Chief Technical Officer of Thales Geosolutions Group Ltd. and from 1996 to 2004 he was Professor of Geophysics at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.  Professor Green has a Bachelor of Science (London), a Masters of Science (Wales), and a Ph.D. from the University of Dundee.  Professor Green was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Geological Society, a Member of the Institute of Petroleum and the European Association of Exploration Geophysicists.

Rafat A. Rizvi, Non-executive Director
Mr. Rizvi is co-founder and Managing Director of First Capital Management Limited, a Mauritius-based asset manager, where he is primarily responsible for the management of the ‘First Global Funds’ family of funds. Mr. Rizvi is also the CEO and Chairman of Boston Holdings and Finance a diversified holding company through which he manages his personal investments. In December 2006, Mr. Rizvi was appointed to the Board of the Dubai headquartered Signature Group, a financial and investment company operating in the Middle East, South Asia and Sub Continent in the fields of real estate, energy, infrastructure and media.

Before establishing First Capital Management, Mr. Rizvi spent several years in London and Singapore with PaineWebber where he was Managing Director and Head of non-Japan Asia Fixed Income business where he established a significant Asia fixed-income franchise. Prior to that Mr. Rizvi was a senior executive in the treasury Division of Saudi American Bank (Citibank) in Riyadh.  Mr. Rizvi has a B.Sc.(Hons) Chemistry from the University of Essex and is a UK national. He is a member of the Singapore YPO chapter.

Mohammad Sultan, Non-executive Director
Mr. Sultan is a founding member and Managing Director of KGL Petroleum, a Kuwait based company.  As Managing Director of KGL Petroleum, Mr. Sultan oversees its business project developments, manages internal and external relations and is responsible for devising and implementing the KGL company strategy, particularly in assessing investment opportunities in the petroleum sector both regionally and globally.  Prior to KGL Petroleum, Mr. Sultan worked for a period of 27 years for the Kuwait Oil Company, a major producer of oil and gas in the world.  Mr. Sultan holds a degree in Electoral and Computer Engineering from the Oregon State University.

Senior Management

Brendan McMorrow FCCA, Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary 
Mr. McMorrow has been involved in all financial aspects of publicly quoted companies in Ireland, UK and North America over the past 18 years.  He brings a significant level of knowledge and experience to Circle in the areas of fund raising, project financing and financial and stock exchange reporting.  Prior to joining Circle he was Chief Financial Officer of Ivernia Inc, a Toronto based international base-metals mining and exploration company which is quoted on the Toronto Stock Exchange.  He is also Company Secretary of Circle Oil Plc.  Mr. McMorrow is a Chartered Certified Accountant

Ali Chine, Country Manager, Tunisia
Mr. Chine, is a  petroleum geologist, who worked most of his career thus far for Enterprise Tunisienne d’Activities Petrolieres (ETAP), the Tunisian State oil company. He was its president and CAO from 2003 to 2004 and was energy advisor to the Tunisian Minister of Industry and Energy from 2004 until his retirement in April 2007. Throughout his career, prior to joining Circle, Mr. Chine was a Board or General Member of a number of Tunisian professional organisations, particularly in the petroleum sector.  His appointment to the Circle team brings to the Company a wealth of knowledge of all aspects of the Tunisian, African and near Middle Eastern oil industry.  Mr. Chine runs Circle’s entire Tunisian operations out of their offices in Gammarth, near Tunis.

Dr. Stuart Harker, Vice President Geology
Stuart gained his BSc(Hons) Geology, University of London, followed by an MSc and PhD from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.  He joined Texaco as an exploration geologist in 1976.  He joined Aramco in Saudi Arabia in 1978, where he worked on both Mesozoic and the then new Palaeozoic plays.  He worked for Murphy Oil in 1980, responsible for exploration in Alberta and British Columbia, before joining Occidental in California in 1981.  He worked on projects concerning the discovery and appraisal of Harriet, Jabiru and Blina fields in Western Australia; Dhurnal field in Pakistan and Safah field in Oman; becoming the Chief Geologist for the Middle and Far East in 1982.  In 1985 Stuart transferred to Aberdeen and worked on the Producing Fields and Exploration of the UKCS, including the discovery and appraisal of West Claymore, Saltire and Scapa oil fields.  Subsequently he worked in several management roles in Exploration and Development for Elf, prior to joining the Paris Headquarters in 1998 to work on International Prospect Evaluation.  In 2000 he returned to Aberdeen to be responsible for Total’s Exploration and Development around the operated North Sea fields, including the discovery of the Forvie North gas-condensate field.  In 2004 he began work in consulting, latterly with PGS on a variety of international exploration and development projects, prior to joining Circle Oil in 2008.

Adrian Burrows, Vice President Geophysics
Adrian joined Amoco Europe as a junior geophysicist in 1974, after graduating with Honours in Geology from University College London.  He contributed to early research projects on acoustic impedance mapping in the North Sea in addition to velocity modelling and analysis over the Valhall gas cloud.  In 1979 he transferred to Amoco International, Houston, working on projects concerning The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and The Philippines.  In 1980 he joined Occidental in Bakersfield, posted as chief geophysicist to Madagascar, Argentina, and The Netherlands.  In 1989 he worked on the redevelopment of the Piper Field and latterly the sale of their UK assets to Elf.  In 1990 he became part of the Elf team, working on Interpretation Support. This included software development, data management and major software redeployment exercises.  From 2000 he undertook consultancy, establishing and/or managing teams in Aberdeen for Granite Rock, Troy Ikoda, RPS Energy, and PGS Reservoir.  Adrian joined Circle Oil in January 2008.

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