Sterling Energy today announced the appointments of Mr Jeffrey MacDonald as Independent Non-Executive Chairman and Mr Gavin Wilson as Non-Executive Director. The incoming Directors replace outgoing Non-Executive Chairman Michael Kroupeev and NonExecutive Directors Leo Koot and Ilya Belyaev, as per the orderly transition previously alluded to in recent market updates.

Jeffrey MacDonald was a former managing director with private equity firm, First Reserve, with responsibility for investment origination, structuring, execution, monitoring and exit strategy, with particular emphasis on the oil and gas sector. Before joining First Reserve, he was a founder and CEO of Caledonia Oil and Gas Ltd., a U.K.-based exploration and production (E&P) firm, and a founding member and managing director of Highland Energy Ltd. Most recently he held the position of Interim CEO and, prior to that, Non-Executive Director, of Kris Energy.

Gavin Wilson has held the position of Investment Director at Meridian Capital Limited, a Hong Kong based international investment firm, for over a decade, managing an Oil & Gas portfolio focused on world-class assets in emerging markets. Mr Wilson founded and managed, for er seven years, two successful investment funds - RAB Energy and RAB Octane. Previously he was Managing Partner of Canaccord Capital London’s Oil & Gas division, responsible for Sales and Corporate Brokering/Finance.

Commenting on the changes, incoming Chairman Jeffrey MacDonald said:
“I’m delighted to be taking on this role at the beginning of the Company’s strategic evolution. The Company intends to re-launch in the near-term under a new name with a well-defined strategy built around achieving scale through the acquisition of production assets and discovered resources resulting from the accelerating energy transition in West Africa. I welcome my fellow incoming Director, and together we look forward to providing our insights and support to the highly experienced executive team recently assembled. The Company looks forward to providing more details around its forward strategy in due course.

I’d also like to thank all of the outgoing Directors for their assistance in ensuring an orderly transition and wish them well with their future endeavours.”

Gavin Wilson, incoming Non Executive Director said:
“On behalf of shareholders I would like to thank Michael Kroupeev and his board for their successful efforts in steadfastly protecting shareholder funds during a difficult era of extreme volatility and energy transition.”

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