Interview with 2009 SPE President Leo Roodhart

Abstract

President's interview Leo Roodhart is Head of Strategic Innovation at Shell International. With Shell since 1980, he has worked in R&D, production engineering, business development, and innovation. Roodhart has been active in SPE for more than 25 years, most recently Director for SPE's North Sea Region, Chairperson of the Board Committee on Technical Programs and Meetings, and a member of the Board Committee on Finance and Administration. His contributions to the Society, at the local and international levels, have emphasized encouraging technology innovation. Roodhart has actively contributed to the SPE Forum Series, serving on Forum steering committees and as a member and as Chairperson of its Implementation Committee for the Eastern Hemisphere. He also has chaired the Forum Series Coordinating Committee. Roodhart has served as both Program and Section Chairperson for SPE's Netherlands Section. He has served on the program committee for Europec and on the 2001, 2003, and 2005 Offshore Europe executive committees. Roodhart chaired the first two Netherlands Applied Technology Workshops (ATWs) on Mature Reservoirs and has served on or chaired many Forum and ATW committees. He has been a member of the Distinguished Lecturer Committee and was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer during 2007–08. Roodhart is an Associate Fellow at Templeton College, Oxford University, on Strategic Innovation. He earned an MS degree in chemistry and a PhD degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Amsterdam. What would you like to accomplish during your term as SPE President? Each SPE President is just one of the links in a long chain of Presidents, each with his or her own aspirations; together they built SPE into what it is now. Even if it would be possible, and it is not, for a President to make big changes in the one year he/she has, it is probably not a good idea. That said, the SPE Board of Directors developed some time ago a Long-Range Plan to guide our Society, which is updated regularly. The current Long-Range Plan identifies key strategic issues, such as turning SPE into a truly global society; engaging young people, particularly inducing students to come select careers in our industry; and tackling such global issues as reserves definitions, capture and sequestration of CO2, and improving the industry's image.