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Meet The Team

Executive Team

Dr Mark Davies

CEO

Mark is the founder of Metatek.

He has over 20 years’ experience in the mining and hydrocarbon industries and previously, was Chief Scientist at a high-end technology driven airborne data acquisition company.

Before that he acted as a senior consultant for a wide range of oil and gas and mining companies, advising them on their geophysical exploration challenges. Mark has also published extensively and written and presented geoscience topics for the BBC, National Geographic and Discovery TV channels.

Mark has a degree in Geology from the University of Wales, a D.E.A. in Volcanology, magmatolgy and Atmospheric Physics from the University Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, France and a PhD in Volcano Geophysics.

Metatek Mark Davies
Metatek Nick Morgan

Nick Morgan

CFO

Nick has spent over 20 years providing strategic and corporate finance advice to public and private companies focused on the Natural Resources and Energy sectors.

Nick’s previous role was as the CFO of a private power generation business, where he worked closely with the private equity owners to realise a successful restructuring and sale of the business. Before this, he was the CFO of a publicly listed oil and gas E&P company for six years.

Prior to his role as a CFO, Nick spent 13 years in investment banking, advising on mergers and acquisitions and equity capital markets transactions, mainly in the global resources sector. Nick is a chartered accountant by profession having qualified with Price Waterhouse.

Sarah Lucas

CAO

Sarah is responsible for human resources and finance and is a is a highly experienced Company Secretary.

She has over 15 years’ experience working within the oil and gas industry, starting her career with a geophysical consultancy. Sarah has experience in company mergers and acquisitions, through the sale of consultancy service companies to an airborne acquisition company.

Sarah is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Metatek Sarah Lucas
philip briandet

Philip Briandet

CSO

Philip is a seasoned professional in consulting and energy transition with over 35 years’ experience in this sector.

He spent 13 years working for Petroleum Geo-Services where he held several senior roles in geophysical operations through to executive positions such as President for PGS Asia Pacific. Before joining Metatek, Philip worked independently as a consultant and served as the Director of Pact Services Pte Ltd. In this role, he offered strategic management and business expansion advice to clients in the APAC markets.

Dr Philip Jones

CTO

With over 20 years’ experience, Phil brings a wealth of experience in airborne and marine operations and non-seismic geophysical data acquisition, QC and processing techniques.

He led nine field seasons in Antarctica, acquiring a variety of geophysical datasets including magnetics and radio echo-sounding data as well as gravity as part of the British Antarctica Survey’s programme of exploration on the Antarctic Peninsula and Ronne Ice Shelf.

Phil has a degree and PhD in Geophysics (EM Induction) from the University of Edinburgh.

Metatek Phil Jones
Metatek Gary Barnes

Dr Gary Barnes

Chief Scientist

Gary has over 18 years’ experience within the potential fields industry specialising in gravity and gravity gradiometry instrumentation, processing and analysis.

At Metatek he collaboratively develops techniques that enhance the quality and use of potential field data to improve the understanding of sub-surface geology. Previously, he was a founding member of a technology driven airborne data acquisition company and headed geophysical software development. Prior to that, he worked as a senior project engineer for Oxford Instruments, modelling the magnetic fields around superconducting components.

Gary has a degree in Physics from the University of Birmingham, a D.Phil in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford, and graduate certificates in Geology from the University of London.

Key Staff

Professor Ali Abdelaziz

Manager Egypt

Ali has over 25 years’ experience in potential field geophysics and prior to joining Metatek in 2017, he held the position of COO at the Nuclear Materials Authority (NMA), Egypt.

Ali also has a wealth of experience in potential field data processing and interpretation including land and airborne surveys. Ali was the principal investigator with Kentucky University, USA managing joint geothermal project over the Red Sea, between 2008 to 2011. He has also published extensively in the field of applied geophysics.

Ali has a degree in Geology-Geophysics from Ain Shams University of Cairo, Egypt, MSc in Applied Geophysics from Delft, Netherland, and a PhD in Applied Geophysics from Cairo University of Cairo, Egypt.

Metatek Ali Abdelaziz
Metatek Iain Brown

Iain Brown

Head of Government Projects

Iain is responsible for Nation State mapping programs. He has over 35 years’ experience in the energy business working as both an exploration geoscientist with oil companies and in senior business and management roles with geophysical service companies.

Latterly, he worked for eleven years at PGS where he was responsible for multi-client reservoir services globally. Iain sat on PILOT’s North Sea Technology Strategy Group reporting to the UK Government on the future of the UKCS (Wood Report) and has served as Vice President of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain. He has lived and worked in Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia

Iain has a degree in Geology from University College London and an MSc, DIC in Petroleum Geology from Imperial College London.

Christian Richards

Sales Manager

Christian has over 20 years’ geoscience industry experience in technical, management and sales roles with geophysical service companies.

He has spent the last 14 years in senior commercial roles focusing on the application of high-end geophysical technology to natural resource exploration sectors worldwide. 

Christian has a BSc in Applied Geology.

image christian richards circle
Metatek Guillermo Caravantes

Dr Guillermo Caravantes

Technical Manager Latin America

Guillermo has over 10 years’ experience in the mining and hydrocarbon industries and is responsible for all technical aspects of projects in the Latin American region. He has also led ground survey projects in three continents using magnetotellurics, gravity, magnetics, GPR and other methods.

Guillermo has previously worked as a key advisor to the Nicaraguan Government in monitoring and mitigation of volcano hazards, published on structural geology, geophysics, and volcanology topics, and organised scientific expeditions to volcanoes around the world. 

Guillermo has a degree in Geology from the Complutense University of Madrid, an undergraduate certificate in Arctic Geology from UNIS (Svalbard, Norway), and a PhD in Volcano Geophysics from the Open University (UK).

Jonathan Watson

Head of Interpretation and General Manager

Jonathan has over 20 years’ experience in both the mining and hydrocarbon industries.

Starting work with the acquisition and processing of potential field data, then moving onto interpretation, Jonathan has expertise in the integration of potential field data, with complimentary datasets and particularly seismic data, to produce combined geological and geophysical solutions.

As well as presenting numerous papers at international conferences, Jonathan has also been heavily involved in academic work, acting as an external project supervisor to the Imperial College Petroleum Engineering MSc course for several years.

Jonathan has a Physical Geography/Geology degree from Manchester and a MRes in Earth Sciences from University of London.

Metatek Jon Watson
Metatek Matt Croft

Matt Croft

Senior Processing Geophysicist

Matt has extensive experience in processing and managing potential field data within the oil and gas industry.

Matt has worked for over 20 years within the industry, starting as a data loader, then moving onto processing geophysicist and then team leader of processing at an airborne acquisition company. Matt has worked predominantly in marine and airborne gravity and magnetics worldwide, but more recently with FTG and LIDAR, and has worked on data from all over the globe.

Matt has a HNC in Land Surveying and Cartography from the De Havilland College, UK

Kevan Bliss

Senior Processing Geophysicist

Kev has over 16 years of industry experience of archiving and processing marine potential field data for several major energy companies.

Over the last 10 years, he has incorporated airborne and land derived gravity, FTG, magnetic, radiometrics, and more recently LiDAR into his data processing capabilities.  Kev also has extensive experience of GIS software packages, using them to increase the value of traditional datasets.

Kev has a BSc in Geophysical Earth Science from the University of East Anglia.

image kevan bliss
Metatek Jim Whitehouse

Dr James Whitehouse

Head of HSE

Jim is responsible for the administration of the Company Health, Safety and Environmental management system and its conformance to industry and client requirements across all operations.

With 14 years’ experience in the geophysical exploration industry, as well as his HSE role, he has Crew Chief experience for both ground and airborne surveys conducted at numerous worldwide locations. Remote site experience in challenging conditions has added applied operational knowledge to the HSE role.

Jim has a NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety, a degree in Earth Science from Kingston University, an MSc in Marine Geotechnics from the University College of North Wales, Bangor and a PhD in Laser Doppler Vibrometry and Acoustics from the Open University.

Andre White

Head of Aviation

Andre is responsible for all aviation matters in the company, such as ensuring all DC-3 aircraft and pilots are properly maintained and trained respectively.

Andre has over 44 years’ experience in the aviation industry. He initially trained in the South African Air Force where he served as a pilot for ten years. After this Andre worked for the International Red Cross, United World Food Programme, and various mining companies.

He has operational experience in Europe, North America and Africa. He has accumulated over 15,000 hours flight time, of which 5,000 hours were on the DC-3 aircraft.

Andre is the holder of a FAA ATP licence, South African ATP license and is a designated flight examiner.

Metatek Andre White

Board Members

Dr Mark Davies - CEO

Mark is the founder of Metatek with over 30 years’ experience in academia and the mining and hydrocarbon industries.  Prior to Metatek he was Chief Scientist at a technology driven airborne data acquisition company and has acted as a consultant for a wide range of oil and gas and mining companies, advising them on their geophysical exploration challenges. Mark has published extensively and written and presented geoscience topics for the BBC, National Geographic and Discovery TV channels. He has a degree in Geology from the University of Wales, a D.E.A. in Volcanology, magmatology and Atmospheric Physics from the University Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, France and a PhD in Volcano Geophysics.

Dr Jim Archibald

Jim has 37 years’ experience in the development, manufacture and delivery of gravity gradiometer and navigation systems and was the former Business and General Manager for Lockheed Martin’s Gravity Gradiometer Systems division. Prior to this he was the engineering manager leading the development of gravity gradiometer systems and the evaluation of new gravity focused technologies for Lockheed Martin’s navigation systems business.

William Phelps

Bill is based in Houston and is an International E&P executive with more than 20 years of finance experience. He was a Co-founder of Coastal Energy (Thailand & Malaysia assets) and served as CFO and Director of Coastal from 2005 until its sale in 2013 for $2.3 billion. Bill currently serves on the Advisory Board of PillarFour Capital. He also worked as a senior Investment Banker in the Energy team at Citigroup.

Paul Colucci

Paul is co-founder and managing partner of PillarFour Capital, a private investment fund focused on technology investments that enhance sustainability and reduce carbon intensity in oilfield operations. He has over 20 years’ experience investing and advising in the global natural resource and technology sectors. He also serves on several private and public company boards.

David Dudlyke

David is a partner at PillarFour Capital and was a former equity research analyst covering the international OFS and E&P sectors for several international investment banks, including Credit Suisse, Stifel Nicolaus and most recently Dundee Securities. David spent four years at McKinsey & Co., providing strategic and operational advice to a variety of oil majors. He began his career within the oil and gas sector as a field engineer with Schlumberger.

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