Was born in Venezuela, and works in Kuwait's oil and gas sector.
She is an innovator, who transforms organizations towards their best.
Her current interests are best practices in Reservoir Management and Women's empowerment.
Background
Maria is an experienced advisor for the oil and gas industry, expert in field development and transformational strategies. She has instrumented and launched innovative implementations in Latin America, USA and the Middle E. She works as executive advisor in Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), currently coordinating the standardization of reservoir management best practices across KOC. Additionally, she is Advisor of the Professional Women Network of the eight companies in the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation holding. Previously, she worked at Halliburton and PDVSA.
Maria is Italian-Venezuelan, studied in the USA, and has lived in Kuwait for the past 10 years, developing her career on three continents. A Physicist from the Simon Bolivar University (Venezuela), and MS in Geophysics from the Colorado School of Mines (USA), Maria is an SPE Distinguished Member, and has been selected as a Distinguished Lecturer for 2017-2018. She was a member of the SPE Talent Council. She is a Lifetime Member of SEG and served as Vice-President in 2005-06.
She is a physicist from Simon Bolivar University (Venezuela), and MS of the Colorado School of Mines (USA).
Career
Maria is a high-performance leader and consultant for the upstream sector of the Oil and Gas industry, with an experienced profile shined by important and rewarded achievements at global and regional scale. Maria has led organizational and technical innovations, improving planning strategies, production, technology applications, and corporate transformations in major corporations. An expert in aligning organizational and transformational strategies, she has driven business efforts with pioneering results in the Middle East, Latin America, and USA, in top-ranked organizations like PDVSA, Halliburton and Kuwait Oil Company.
Maria has an outstanding insight for envisioning, launching, and implementing large-scope initiatives for corporate growth and transformation. Most remarkably, she has helped boards and executives to implement their strategies in challenging business environments, driving efforts to achieve their goals in accelerated timeframes. She has steered the enhancement of planning and field development practices, for one of the largest assets in the world, the Burgan super giant. She has also developed a number of pioneer initiatives in Venezuela and Kuwait related to enhancing the liaisons and practical involvement of industry with academia, including production sharing agreements, partnerships, students exchange programs, and enrichment of curricula.
She is the senior advisor for the Deputy CEO of Kuwait Oil Company in charge of North Kuwait Asset, an Asset that will produce 900,000 BOPD and will develop the Heavy Oil resources of Kuwait. Before this role, she was senior advisor for the Deputy CEO of KOC in charge of the Burgan super-giant, coordinating the Integrated Business Management initiative, for the alignment of all activities of this asset, to produce 1.7 MMBOPD.
Maria is also a renowned leader of global outreach in inclusion and diversity, currently leading as advisor and coordinator the Professional Women Network of the 8 companies in the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation holding, and in a role of advisor of the SEG and SPE initiatives for the advancement of women.
Energetic and expert communicator. A persuasive mentor and a truly inspirational executive coach. Extensively networked at the international level. Remarkable at empowering multicultural teams. Editor of Journal of Petroleum Technology (field development) for the SPE. SEG Life Member and SPE Distinguished Member awardee.
Areas of Expertise
Driving of Business Efforts | Strategic and Operational Planning | Project Portfolio Optimization
Oil Asset Master Plans | Field Development | Training & Development
Geophysics | Reservoir Management and Characterization | Integrated Subsurface Studies
Corporate Technical Networks | Goal Achievement and KPIs | Multiculturalism
Organizational Transformations and Growth | Women Empowerment | Diversity programs
Personality
An energetic person, Maria is distinguished by her collaborative approach to change management.
She is a natural coach and mentor, and has been labeled as a Role Models by people from USA, the Middle East and Latin-American origins, signifying an extraordinary capacity to adapt and cross cultural settings and biases.