West Indies Petroleum Limited (WIPL) yesterday announced the appointment of Eric Evans and Amanda Levien to its board of directors.

They join founding directors Gordon Shirley, Gerald Charles Chambers, and Tarik Felix.

Evans has over 40 years’ experience in petroleum, sales, operations, and the shipping industry with knowledge from both the selling and buying perspective, WIPL said in a news release.

Over the years, he has engaged with a worldwide network of individuals and companies with exceptional leaders in their respective fields.

“He also brings to the table vast experience in physical infrastructure expansion along with a track record of excellence in project management, design, and implementation of alternative fuels projects,” the company said, adding that he also has extensive experience in energy and oil commodities, infrastructure, marine transportation, asset management, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and environmental sustainability projects.

For the better part of two decades, Evans, who served as a leading business executive in the United States, was vice-president for international cruise operator, Carnival Corporation, where he was in charge of the fuel procurement and fuel management division. He also served as a vice-president at specialised finance company ICON International and spent 18 years as director of marine sales and operations at Coastal Refining Corp.

Evans, the company said, is an energy consultant strategic advisor. He is respected by industry stakeholders as a strategic, innovative and influential leader who is adept at attaining organisational goals via extensive commodity knowledge and operational excellence.

The company said that “Levien is a respected international investment banking executive with over 15 years’ experience in both principal investments and investment banking advisory services pursued by established, middle-market and emerging growth companies”.

Levien has had fruitful mergers and acquisitions engagements with Callisto Partners, Oxbow Carbon and securities giant Goldman Sachs, among other entities. She has completed over 27 transactions with an aggregate value of more than US$3 billion.

She has served clients in a wide range of industries including energy, industrials, technology and business services sectors, the company said.

Responding to the appointments, WIPL Chairman Gordon Shirley said Levien and Evans “are excellent additions, given that they bring a diverse skill set which will no doubt be useful in providing more dynamic oversight to the company’s operations, as well as assisting the entity as it moves towards pursuing additional expansion strategies and further asserting its role as among the leaders in the local, regional and international energy sector”.

Chief Executive Officer Charles Chambers also welcomed Levien and Evans to the board and said that since WIPL came into operation in 2013 it has been able to achieve and maintain stability and lend its efforts to the efficient functioning of the regional economy by ensuring fuel availability and efficiency and, by extension, contributing to regional energy security.

“There’s no doubt that the engagement of the new WIPL board members augurs well for the aforementioned efforts and the company’s unwavering mission to operate with probity, accuracy, efficiency and integrity in the increasingly important energy sector,” the release quotes Chambers.