Wataru Sato joined the Summit team in March 2015 and was reassigned back to Sumitomo in January 2019.

Prior to joining Summit, Wataru served as E&P business development manager for Sumitomo Corporation, Tokyo.

Wataru has over 25 years of experience in the oil and gas industries, including oil products trading, LNG project development and E&P upstream business

John joined Summit E&P Ltd as CEO in January 2019, following 39 years of experience in management and technical positions in the E&P business.

Following a First Class B.Sc. in Physics with Geophysics at Bath University and an M.Sc. in Geophysics from Durham University, John joined Western Geophysical, then Texaco, as a Geophysicist before spending 14 years at Enterprise Oil in a range of technical and management positions, covering North Sea, SE Asia and Middle East. After Shell’s takeover of Enterprise in 2002, John joined RWE Dea as UK Exploration & New Business Manager, before moving to Vienna in 2006 as OMV’s Head of International Exploration, then Regional Exploration Manager for NW Europe and Africa. He was appointed Managing Director of OMV UK in 2008 before taking up a role as General Manager Sub-Saharan Africa until leaving OMV in 2017 to follow a multi-faceted career as an E&P advisor to governments and industry before joining Summit.

John is a long-standing member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, The European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers, and the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain, of which he was President in 2013.

Hisataka Inoue joined Summit E&P in April 2019, with 37 years experience as a petroleum geologist and over 10 years of management for multiple oil and gas development companies.

His business career started with an Offshore China project and later expanded to projects in North America, South America, Africa, Europe and Austrasia, These projects were not limited to exploration but also included the development and production of oil and gas fields.

Hisataka was a principal staff for petrophysics, stratigraphy, geochemistry and operation geology which resulted in appointment to the leading position as a chief geologist for several years. Upon assignment for management his area of interest and contribution was deepened further to business strategy and corporate management.

Hisataka has been inducted to be a member of directors of the Japanese Association for Petroleum Technology and appointed to be Vice Chairman since 2014 (Councillor since 2018).

Akira Kodama joined the Summit team in February 2019.

Prior to joining Summit, Akira served as manager at E&P Business Dept. for Sumitomo Corporation, Tokyo, especially for Latin America Business Development.

Akira has been mainly in E&P business over his 17 years of experience with Sumitomo Corporation including 4.5 years in Houston, United States working at Summit Discovery Resources (a subsidiary conducting unconventional onshore business) and 4 years in the Risk Management Dept. supporting commercial aspects of E&P and certain mining projects.

Richard joined Summit in 2008 and has over 30 years of experience in the oil industry working for majors, small independents and service companies within the UKCS.
His current position involves license compliance, and responsibility for the company’s Health, Safety and Environmental management systems, together with an active role in managing the company’s Information Technology and Data.
Richard is an associate member of the IEMA and has an honours degree in Earth Science from Kingston University, an MSc in Sedimentology and an MSc in GIS from Birkbeck University.

Ken qualified as a member of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants in 1989. Ken trained with a firm of Certified Accountants in London and gained extensive experience in accounting and tax. Prior to joining Summit Ken was the Accounts Manager at Svenska Petroleum UK Limited. He joined Summit in July 2005, as Financial Controller, and was brought in to set up the entire accounting/tax function for Summit. Since then Ken has been involved in several buy/sell transactions with Summit and became VP Finance in January 2017.

Kazuo Matsuoka joined the Summit team in October 2020.

Prior to joining Summit, Kazuo served as manager at E&P Business Dept. for Sumitomo Corporation, Tokyo.

Kazuo has been mainly in LNG and infrastructure business over his 13 years of experience with Sumitomo Corporation including 5 years in Natural Gas and LNG Business Dept. in Tokyo for business development in Asian region and 5 years in Jakarta, Indonesia working at Sumitomo Corporation Jakarta Office for power business.

Peter has over 30 years of diverse Petroleum Engineering and Business experience. Starting in the 1980s as a Reservoir Engineer where the projects included huge field studies in Libya and India and a World Bank funded multi field gas reserves study in Bolivia.

Seven years of RE/PE contracting work for Majors, Independents and Utilities followed with 6 years of Asset Manager and Commercial work at Eon Ruhrgas prior to joining Summit in 2010 as the Engineering Manager. The BD role was added in 2017 following the retirement of the previous holder.

Peter has an honours degree in Chemical & Process Engineering from Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh and a Postgraduate Diploma in Offshore Engineering from Robert Gordon Institute of Technology (now Robert Gordon University). He has been a SPE member since 1986.

Russell has over 15 years of experience working in industry and academia. He has a proven track record of finding quality drill targets in mature basins both in UK offshore licenses and internationally throughout the Atlantic margins. His wider career experience includes working for both operators and service companies, whilst using and developing advanced technologies including seismic inversion & QI workflows, ocean bottom seismic processing & acquisition and more recently machine learning.
Russell is an active member of the PESGB and FGS with a PhD in geophysics from the University of Birmingham and a 1st in geology from Cardiff University. When not actively exploring for oil and gas Russell contributes to the wider industry knowledge through research and publications.