Management Team

Dr. Bernard Duroc-Danner is an internationally recognized energy executive, having built Weatherford International Ltd. and Grant Prideco, two global market and industry leaders whose growth was driven through hundreds of focused acquisitions around the world. Dr. Duroc-Danner started EVI, Inc. (NYSE: EVI), an oilfield service and equipment company in May 1987, for which he served as Chairman, President and CEO until he retired in 2016, and upon retirement was given the distinction of Chairman Emeritus of Weatherford, EVI’s successor company. 

Dr. Duroc-Danner started EVI with no product lines, operations or business and very limited financial resources. Over time and with the benefit of over 250 industrially concentric acquisitions and continuous development, EVI built two industrial leaders: Grant Prideco (NYSE: GRP) and subsequent to the acquisition of Weatherford Enterra in 1998, Weatherford International Ltd. (NYSE: WFT), which also became the successor name to EVI. In recognition of the industrial buildup and value created, the original EVI stock split in four separate events 32 to one. By the time Dr. Duroc-Danner retired, he had built Weatherford through hundreds of acquisitions into one of the largest energy service companies in the world with approximately 50,000 employees and operating in over 100 countries. Concurrently, in 2000, after more than a decade of building it through a series of transactions, EVI through its successor company, Weatherford, spun out Grant Prideco, the industry’s worldwide leader for drill pipe and drill stem accessories, as a dividend to its shareholders. It represented more than a third of Weatherford’s traded market equity value at that time. Subsequent to the spin-off, Dr. Duroc-Danner served as Chairman of Grant Prideco until 2003. Grant Prideco was sold a few years later to National Oilwell Varco (NYSE: NOV) for an enterprise value of approximately $7.5 billion, creating substantial value for Weatherford shareholders.

Dr. Duroc-Danner was named as Outstanding Texas Entrepreneur by the Texas House of Representatives (2011) and was the Ernst and Young recipient of the Worldwide Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Energy and Chemicals Industry in 2008.

Dr. Duroc-Danner received his MBA and a PhD degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Gustafson is a highly experienced energy service industry executive, investment banker, and corporate securities attorney. With over 25 years of experience in the global energy sector, Mr. Gustafson has advised on over 100 corporate transactions around the world for over $100 billion of transaction value. 

Mr. Gustafson began his career as a corporate and securities attorney in 1992, holding positions at the international law firms of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton and Baker Botts L.L.P. He continued his career in investment banking, holding various positions at Simmons & Company International, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and UBS Investment Bank before serving as Managing Director and Head of the Energy Group, Americas at Deutsche Bank from 2009 to 2012. From 2012 to 2014, Mr. Gustafson was Chief Executive Officer and Director of Era Group Inc. (previously NYSE: ERA), where he led the successful spin out of Era from Seacor Holdings in January 2013. From 2017 to 2018, Mr. Gustafson served as a member of the Founding Steering Committee created by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia to establish a private commercial helicopter operator (The Helicopter Company) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. From 2017 to 2019, Mr. Gustafson served as a director at CHC Helicopter. Since 2018, he has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the publicly traded Norwegian company, Golden Energy Offshore (GEOS.ME.Oslo), a fully integrated shipowner and operator of offshore service vessels for the global offshore wind industry as well as the oil and gas industry. Since 2020, Mr. Gustafson has also served as an independent director for Western Rare Earths, the U.S. subsidiary of Australian rare earth mining company, American Rare Earths (ASX: ARR), providing critical materials for electric vehicles, wind turbines, and other renewable energy technology. 

Mr. Gustafson earned a B.A. in English from Rice University and earned a Juris Doctor (magna cum laude—top 1%) from the University of Houston Law Center.

Mr. Saxton began his finance career at Lehman Brothers, where he spent 12 years and rose to the position of managing director and head of the oilfield services practice. From 2008 to 2014, Mr. Saxton was a partner at White Deer Energy, a private equity firm focused on energy investments, with $2.5 billion under management. In 2014, he became a partner at PPHB, a boutique investment bank specializing in energy, where he handled oilfield services financings, mergers, divestitures and capital structure advisory engagements. Between 2017 and 2024, Mr. Saxton served as the Director of U.S. Operations and was a shareholder at Interra Energy Services. Currently, he is a partner and COO at Encore Global Management, a hedge fund located in Houston. Mr. Saxton holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BS in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Mr. Pedersen is a highly experienced veteran in the renewable energy industry, working the past 20 years as a senior executive as well as an independent director in leading global companies in the renewable energy industry across the value chain. Mr. Pedersen joined the wind industry in 2000 as CFO of the Danish wind turbine manufacturer, NEG Micon/Vestas. In 2004, he became CEO of Suzlon Energy, a wind turbine manufacturer based in India, building a global presence from a startup. In late 2007, Mr. Pedersen then became CEO of Repower/Senvion, a German manufacturer of wind turbines. Mr. Pedersen has

extensive M&A experience and has been instrumental in a number of transactions in the renewables industry. Since 2011, Mr. Pedersen has worked as an Independent Director and Industry Advisor in the renewable energy industry. Mr. Pedersen is Chairman of PNE AG Germany, one of Europe’s largest project developers in onshore and offshore wind as well as solar. Mr. Pedersen also serves as Independent Director in Suzlon Energy Ltd India, Independent Director in Swire Energy Services and Independent Director in SeaTower AS Norway. Since 2017, Mr. Pedersen has served as a Senior Advisor to McKinsey and an independent member of the Investment Committee of Caribbean Clean Energy Fund. 

Mr. Pedersen received his MBA with honors from Copenhagen Business School (University of Copenhagen) and holds a BSc in Finance and Accounting from Copenhagen Business School.

Dr. Pasquali joined Rice University in 2000 and has served as Co-Director of the Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory from 2005 to 2008, Magister of Lovett College from 2009 to 2014, Chair of the Chemistry Department from 2014 to 2018, and Chief Scientific Advisor for Nanotechnology at Shell (sabbatical) from 2018 to 2019. Since 2014, Dr. Pasquali has served as the A. J. Hartsook Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Chemistry, and Materials Science & NanoEngineering at Rice University. He has also served as a board member of the Rice Sustainability Institute since 2023 and a director and scientific advisor for DexMat, Inc. since 2015. His laboratory studies the interplay of energy, materials and carbon, and is pioneering system-level pathways to decarbonize the industrial sector by using carbon materials while co-producing clean hydrogen. Dr. Pasquali leads an academic team that received the first Kavli Foundation Exploration Award in Nanoscience for Sustainability in 2023. Dr. Pasquali is also the founding director of the Carbon Hub, a partnership formed in 2019 between academia, industry and federal labs encompassing over 20 organizations across four continents. The Carbon Hub develops and deploys pathways for simultaneously harvesting zero-emission hydrogen and carbon materials that can reduce emissions from industry and transportation. Dr. Pasquali is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has won numerous awards including the NSF CAREER in 2001, the Goradia Innovation Grand Prize in 2014, the Herschel Rich Invention Award in 2016, the Schlack Prize for Man-Made Fibers in 2014 and the Rice Presidential Mentoring Award in 2020. Since 2018, Dr. Pasquali has also served as president of Pasquali SWNT Consulting, LLC, for which he provides strategic advice on carbon nanotechnology. 

Mr. Leuschen is a Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director of Riverstone. He is based in New York, and sits on the Investment Committees of all the various Riverstone investment vehicles. Prior to founding Riverstone, Mr. Leuschen was a Partner and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs and founder and head of the Goldman Sachs Global Energy and Power Group. Mr. Leuschen was responsible for building the Goldman Sachs energy and power investment banking practice into one of the leading franchises in the global energy and power industry. Mr. Leuschen additionally served as Chairman of the Goldman Sachs Energy Investment Committee, where he was responsible for screening potential direct investments by Goldman Sachs in the energy and power industry. Mr. Leuschen has served as a Director of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Cross Timbers Oil Company (predecessor to XTO Energy) and J. Aron Resources. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Centennial Resource Development, Inc., Enviva Holdings GP, LLC, Enviva Partners GP, LLC, Pattern Energy Group LP, Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation II (DCRN), Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation III (DCRC), Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation IV (DCRDU), Talen Energy Corporation, and various private Riverstone portfolio companies. He is also president and sole owner of Switchback Ranch LLC and on the Advisory Board of Big Sky Investment Holdings LLC. David serves on a number of nonprofit boards of directors, including as a Trustee of United States Olympic Committee Foundation, a Director of Conservation International, a Director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Founding Member of the Peterson Institute’s Economic Leadership Council, a Director of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and a Director of the Montana Land Reliance. Mr. Leuschen received his A.B. from Dartmouth and his M.B.A. from Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business.

Mr. Lapeyre is a Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director of Riverstone. He is based in New York. Prior to founding Riverstone, Mr. Lapeyre was a Managing Director of Goldman Sachs in its Global Energy & Power Group. Mr. Lapeyre joined Goldman Sachs in 1986 and spent his 14-year investment banking career exclusively focused on energy and power, particularly the midstream/pipeline and oil service sectors. Mr. Lapeyre’s responsibilities included client coverage and leading the execution of a wide variety of M&A, IPO, strategic advisory and capital markets financings for clients across all sectors of the industry. Mr. Lapeyre received his B.S. in Finance/Economics from the University of Kentucky and his M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to his duties at Riverstone, Mr. Lapeyre serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Visitors of the MD Anderson Cancer Center and is a Trustee and Treasurer of The Convent of the Sacred Heart.

Mr. Abbate is a Managing Partner and Co-CEO of Breakwall Capital. He is based in Newport, Rhode Island and New York. Previously, Mr. Abbate was a Partner at Riverstone Holdings LLC, as well as a Founder and Co-Head of Riverstone Credit Partners, focused on the firm’s credit and capital markets activities. Prior to joining Riverstone in 2014, Mr. Abbate was a Managing Director and Head of Energy Leveraged Finance at Citigroup. Prior to Citigroup, Mr. Abbate was the Head of U.S. Leveraged Finance Origination at UBS Investment Bank. Mr. Abbate joined UBS in 2000 as an Associate Director in the Energy group, where he worked covering upstream and midstream oil and gas companies. He started his investment banking career in 1997 at PaineWebber as an Associate in the Energy group. Prior to his career on Wall Street, Mr. Abbate served as an Intelligence Applications Officer in the U.S. Air Force for five years. Mr. Abbate graduated with a B.A. from Duke University and has an MBA from the University of Maryland. In addition to various corporate boards, Mr. Abbate is Chairman of the Board of the Portsmouth Abbey School.