His appointment as Chief Financial Officer followed a 14-year business career at Cairn during which he rose through the ranks. Hitesh brings in 18 years of work experience in the Oil and Gas industry. Prior to joining Cairn, he was previously associated with BPCL.

At Cairn, Hitesh is responsible for driving financial performance, capital allocation, business partnering, treasury, cost management, financial accounting and reporting, and other strategic matters.

Hitesh qualified as a Chartered Accountant from the ICAI in 2003. He also holds a B.Com (Hons.) degree which he completed at SRCC, Delhi University.

Hitesh enjoys playing cricket and badminton.

His appointment as Chief Commercial Officer followed a 17-year business career at Cairn during which he rose through the ranks in various leadership roles in the areas of Finance, Regulatory & Strategy. Rakesh brings in more than 26 years of work experience. Prior to joining Cairn, he was previously associated with BPL Soft Energy, Coca, Cola, Ralliwolf Limited and Fort Gloster Cables.

At Cairn, Rakesh has been instrumental in defining the Financial Processes & Controls, Partnering with the Business Units in Operations & Decision Making, closely working with the Business Partners & Service Providers, Regulators and the MoPNG. He has hands on experience in leading financial system improvements, championing commercial capability, skilled in analyzing business operations, trends, costs, revenues and deft in overseeing key organizational functions.

Rakesh is a CA, CS and ICWA and has done B.Com (Hons.) from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Rakesh’s interests include cricket and travel.

Andrew brings over 25 years of extensive experience in working with some of the world’s leading oil and gas companies. At Cairn, he is responsible for developing contracting strategies aligned with the business drivers for the organization. He will play a front-end role in designing and driving Commercial Strategy with strong focus on Volume, Cost, Margin Protection, Business Partner Management, and Spend Base Optimization.

Andrew comes with deep expertise in drilling, EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) capital projects, operations, and maintenance across onshore and offshore projects. Prior to Cairn, he was leading development of gas project in the Black Sea with OMV for London and Bucharest for over 3 years. Andrew has also held various global leadership positions across contracts and procurement, in reputed organizations such as British Petroleum, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Premier Oil amongst others.

Andrew has a Bachelor of Science in Quantity Surveying from Robert Gordon University Aberdeen, United Kingdom. He is also a part of the Chartered Institute Purchasing and Supply (MCIPS).

Mr. Kar comes with over 25 years of experience in the oil and gas sector. Prior to joining Cairn Oil & Gas, Mr. Kar held leadership positions for global oil and gas companies such as Shell and BG Group. He has experience across commercial and marketing leadership roles in India and overseas and has led multi-cultural teams across Commercial, Marketing and Business Development. Having deep knowledge in the power and the oil & gas upstream to downstream sector, he has a broad understanding of the energy value chain. He has been bestowed with prestigious awards including, the certificate of merit by KazEnergy Eurasian Forum.

At Cairn Oil & Gas, Rana Kar is responsible for leading the Marketing & Sales function across the entire asset portfolio, with a focus on value addition and broadening Cairn’s customer reach.

Mr. Kar holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from NIT, Rourkela and PGDM from IIM, Calcutta.

Rana enjoys reading and spending time with his family.

He is responsible for leading Cairn’s legal strategy towards unlocking the business value, working closely with the Cairn ManCo and SBU Presidents to drive enhanced business performance through strong legal assurance, litigation management, contracts’ robustness, enterprise risk mitigation, compliance, and governance.

With a wealth of experience, Rod excels in negotiating intricate contractual agreements to capitalise on new business prospects across international borders. His expertise extends to crafting profit-sharing arrangements and establishing joint ventures in foreign jurisdictions. Rod's professional background includes significant tenures at esteemed organisations such as Anadarko Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, and Helmerich & Payne. Most recently, he served as the General Counsel at TF Warren Group.

Rod holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from University of Tulsa, College of Law, Tulsa and an MBA from Rice University, Houston, Texas. He brings over 25 years of legal expertise in supporting domestic and international oil and gas projects and operations.

Stephen (Sam) brings over 30 years of experience in exploration, appraisal, and development of conventional onshore, shallow and deepwater projects. He also carries rich experience in Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) as well as onshore unconventional (shale and tight gas) from leading global oil and gas companies across the globe.

Leading the geoscience and reservoir engineering functions, Sam ensures application of latest technologies such as seismic acquisition, processing, interpretation plus play-based mapping and risk-based economic evaluation to devise exploration strategy aligned with business goals. His expertise guides and supports us in ensuring cost-effective and safe operations, accelerating our vision of contributing 50% to domestic hydrocarbon production.

Sam graduated from University of Oxford with a Bachelors in Geology. He further completed his Ph.D. and earned a Doctorate in Geology from Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA in 1992.