MEET OUR BOARD MEMBERS
RAQUEL CLEMENT
CHAIRPERSON OF THE BOARD
​Raquel and her team currently steward digital innovation and software applications to enable production, operation, transformation, and delivery of Chevron’s produced molecules from the wellhead to the end user markets. Raquel also represents Chevron as member of the Board of Directors for the Blockchain For Energy Consortium. In 1997 she joined Texaco in Venezuela, supporting Downstream and Upstream operations. In 2005 she transferred to the US where she served in a variety of leadership roles including: LNG commercialization analyst, On-shore Production Operations Engineering, Process Safety Management and Performance Improvement/Lean Sigma Management. She earned her BA in mechanical engineering from Universidad del Zulia (Venezuela), and her MBA from Rice University. She is happily married, enjoys outdoors activities, flamenco, opera, and community services.
RASHI GAJULA
VICE-CHAIRPERSON OF THE BOARD
Rashi Gajula is an established leader with 22 years of upstream Oil and Gas IT experience and a proven track record of enabling business through technology. She leads Automation & Digital at Pioneer Natural Resources. As a senior leader, she plays a critical role in partnering with executives for aligning technical roadmaps to strategic business goals and delivering solutions which increase operational and capital efficiency. Rashi has also led several cross functional teams successfully in different organizational units to innovate rapidly with an extreme focus on change management and adaptability. She has a reputation in the firm for agile delivery of projects and products which have compelling value proposition and clear alignment with company strategy.
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As Vice Chair for Blockchain For Energy, she spearheads the oil and gas industry’s digital transformation by leveraging blockchain & related technologies through development of use-cases that catapult the collective journey of member companies into the new-era of sustainable energy development
JD FRANKE
JD has been a member of the ConocoPhillips office of the Global CIO since 2012, where he serves in IT Strategy and Innovation, based out of the Houston world headquarters. Franke supports the Global IT leadership team in setting the organization's strategic agenda and acts as an internal consultant on emerging IT technologies that enable innovation and digital transformation efforts across the company. Franke is a member of the cross-functional leadership team focused on advancing the company's Blockchain-related efforts and represents IT on a company Emerging Digital Technology Council.
RAJ RAPAKA
Raj is a Digital Transformation Advisor with ExxonMobil and has been with the firm for ten years. Over the course of his career, Raj has worked in consulting, marketing, commodities trading, and GHG program management – but found his calling in business transformation. He is an ardent student of business history and is passionate about recognizing, understanding, and leveraging the forces of change. He is the creator of the SELF-HELP business improvement framework, and uses his background in engineering, technology, and finance to ideate, advocate, and execute step-change initiatives.
Raj spearheads ExxonMobil's efforts around Blockchain and is a board member on the Blockchain for Energy consortium.
AYANA TALLEY
Ayana Spriggs Talley is an Enterprise Solutions Technology leader at Devon Energy. Ayana has over 20 years in the technology industry with various technical and leadership roles, 13 of those years have been spent in the Energy industry. Her focus is in aligning innovative technology solutions with business strategies and prioritie s. Ayana holds a master’s degree in Business Administration (Leadership) from Oklahoma City University and a bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from Oklahoma State
University. Ayana is married and the proud mother of two daughters. Ayana gives back to the community as a Board member of Oklahoma Women in Technology which is a statewide organization that promotes, advocates and provides thought leadership for women working in technology. In her free time, she enjoys coaching her girls in softball and vacationing.
MIKE GREEN
Mike Green is a technology leader at Chesapeake Energy. He has served in various leadership and advisory roles spanning across IT, Finance, and Accounting during his career. Mike has shaped key business and digital transformation efforts, including ERP, financial forecasting, and data analytics platform implementations, SOX modernization, ESG technology architecture, M&A integrations, field technology optimization, and designing key financial and operational analytical models.
He currently leads the functional IT organization at Chesapeake, with responsibilities including Finance, Accounting, D&C, Operations, Land, Subsurface, RPA, GIS, and SCADA systems.
Mike is a technology enthusiast, blockchain evangelist, and self-proclaimed data nerd.
NURIA AVALOS
Nuria is the CEO at IndesIA and Digital Consortium Director at Repsol, with a wide experience in creation and leadership of technological consortiums in Spain, Europe and USA. She is an expert in the constitution, promotion and leadership of technological consortiums, mostly linked with blockchain but also with self-sovereign digital identity: governance model, partner recruitment, incentives model, budgets, communication, training, institutional representation, events, construction/use of technological platforms, identification and implementation of use cases, creation of ecosystem / community.
She has been linked to the digital transformation program for more than 5 years, as RPA and Digital Experimentation Director, focused on improving businesses by exploring and testing the potential of the emerging technologies such as blockchain, drones, 3d printing, virtual reality, biometrics, etc. and she was also leading the global RPA deployment.
She holds a Business Administration graduate and Associate Professor International MBA, IE Business School (RPA-Robot Process Automation). She has 4 teenage daughters and is very committed with promoting diversity in every environment, sponsoring initiatives like Repsol Digital Girls, together with Technovation Challenge.
BRYAN HENCHIR
Bryan has been employed by EQT Corporation, the nation's largest natural gas producer, for eight years. He is currently a Technical Program Manager on EQT’s digital stack team. Previously, he completed their rotational engineering program and spent several years in their Asset Performance team working on reservoir and completions engineering science projects, yearly reserves audits, competitor analysis, and various M&A deal evaluations. Bryan was instrumental in the digital transformation of this department, and through collaboration with EQT’s Business Intelligence team, was able to create new processes and insights that enabled data driven decision making. As collaboration with other departments increased, Bryan transitioned to his current role within the IT organization to help build digital products that have a broader impact on the organization and its future.
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Bryan holds a master’s in Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University as well as a bachelor’s in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
REBECCA HOFMANN
FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Rebecca Hofmann is an accomplished finance and compliance leader with over 20 years of experience in the energy industry. Her past operational assignments have covered the development and improvement of processes over governance and compliance to support onshore and offshore operations. She is the founder and visionary behind the Blockchain for Energy consortium — where she is the standing CEO and served as chairman of the board two years prior. Hofmann’s many industry awards and accolades include the 2018 GRIT Award for Creativity and Innovation, the 2019 GRIT Award for her team’s work in emerging technologies, and the 2021 Global Supply Chain Leaders Blockchain CEO of the Year Award. She has also authored several thought leadership articles related to blockchain technology.
JASON JONES
TREASURER
Jason has worked at Mobil and ExxonMobil for 32 years and is currently a Financials Enterprise Architect and IT Fellow. Starting in the Controller's organization, he helped transform many sales, trading, and volume accounting processes. In 1998, Jason moved to the Fuels Marketing organization as Vice President of Mobil Diesel Supply Corporation where he helped build Mobil's diesel marketing business with the Petro Stopping Centers joint venture. After the merger, he moved into IT helping to merge Mobil and Exxon applications and develop his skills in business architecture, innovation, and technology surveillance. Five years ago, he was charged with learning what blockchain technology and cryptocurrency could offer and spent several months with some of the industry thought leaders. It was at the first oil and gas blockchain conference at Rice University that Jason met Rebecca Hofmann and others from the industry to share our enthusiasm for the transformational opportunities of digital and blockchain technologies for our industry. When he's not acting as a blockchain and emerging technology catalyst, you can find Jason in his garden micro-managing his 100+ plumeria plants.
