Kirk Lovegrove & Company believes that the majority of its team should have significant, appropriate experience which can be used to provide the best possible advice to its clients. Most of our peers have a team shaped like a pyramid. They typically have one or two senior people at the top and many junior people below. Most of these have less than five years of experience in the business. At KLC the great majority of our team have twenty years or more experience in the oil & gas or energy industry. Their experience covers Strategy and M&A&D to finance and related disciplines. Our people are those who like to provide sound advice to clients and, at the appropriate time, to roll up their sleeves to get the job done.
Niels Kirk
Niels is co-founder and Executive Chairman of KLC. He has spent 38 years in Banking, initially focusing on structured finance, foreign exchange/derivatives and commodity trade finance. In 1991 he joined Citibank NA and since that time has focused on Corporate Banking for specialized, capital intensive industries, namely: Energy (oil & gas); Power & Utilities; Chemicals; and Metals & Mining. Additionally, from 2009 to 2011 he managed Citibank’s Strategic Capital & Corporate Finance Group in EMEA. Niels was Chairman and MD of Citibank’s EMEA Energy & Natural Resources Group up to 2018.
He also established Citigroup’s Climate Council purposed to create innovative financial products and solutions to meet clients’ and its sustainability challenges. In 2018, Niels became a Non-Executive Director of Subsea 7 S.A. and is a former member of the Advisory Board of Advanced Power.
Jim Peterkin
Jim is the Chief Executive of KLC. He has over 30 years of investment banking experience in the energy industry, including in upstream, midstream and downstream sub-sectors, as well as in energy transition. Before joining KLC, Jim worked at Barclays, Citigroup, Schroders and most recently as the Head of Energy Investment Banking, EMEA for Credit Suisse. Jim has advised private companies, funds, listed companies, NOCs and governments on a wide variety of corporate finance transactions including acquisitions, disposals, IPOs, equity and bond financings and take private transactions, in particular the world’s largest IPO – of Saudi Aramco. At Credit Suisse he was responsible for all Energy coverage and transaction execution in EMEA and was Vice Chairman of the Investment Banking Committee for financing.
Michael Bridden
Michael is a Principal of KLC. He has a range of technical, commercial and project management skills in both the oil & gas industry and finance. He is a geologist, starting business life working for RTZ Oil & Gas in 1981 and then BP where he was a Senior Business Analyst in the Strategic Business Development Group. In 1994, he joined British Borneo Oil & Gas as head of Portfolio Management. In 2000, he joined Harrison Lovegrove & Co, playing a significant role in project execution, evaluations and building and running the firm’s research capabilities. HLC was sold to Standard Chartered Bank in 2007 and Michael initially continued these roles there. Later he became responsible for all technical evaluation of the Bank’s lending to upstream clients and for structuring appropriate financings.
Paul Dufays
Paul is a Director at KLC. He is an energy lawyer by training. After working with the legal firms Torys LLP, Herbert Smith and Leboeufs over ten years to 2007, Paul joined Harrison Lovegrove as Corporate Counsel. He handled the execution of the company’s sale to Standard Chartered Bank that year thereafter providing advice to oil & gas clients in the areas of M&A&D and the structuring of reserves-based lending facilities. This work was global, although he developed a focus in West Africa and the North Sea. In 2013, Paul joined Amni International Petroleum, a Nigerian indigenous oil company, as General Manager, Corporate Finance and Commercial where he managed debt fundraising, M&A activity, and hedging activities. In 2016, he was appointed Group Finance Manager of Energean Oil & Gas, where he managed the company’s loan facilities and its IPO preparations. Paul is involved in KLC’s energy transition advisory work and is involved in fundraising and M&A transactions for biofuels, biogas and geothermal businesses in Europe, Africa and Asia. Paul has a BA in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard University and an LL.B from Dalhousie Law School.
Irini Hughes
Irini has a petroleum engineering background and experience in business development, strategy, market analysis and commercial due diligence in the upstream oil & gas industry. She started her career in 2001 with Anadarko International as a production engineer for their assets in Algeria and in 2003 she joined Deloitte’s Petroleum Services Group and moved into financial modelling, consulting, IPO and M&A transaction support. In 2007, she moved back into the industry, first with PetroCanada and subsequently with Statoil, holding a wide range of roles within their strategy and business development units, including asset sales, acquisitions, country entries and heading up origination for many of Statoil’s African assets.
Richard Newton
Richard is an upstream energy professional with over a decade of experience spanning the full upstream lifecycle from both technical and commercial perspectives. A geoscientist by background, he joined Tullow Oil in 2011 and has worked across Africa, South America and Europe. He was specifically involved in exploration projects in Uganda, Kenya, Argentina & Suriname along with production roles in Ghana, alongside new ventures opportunities globally. He later moved into commercial positions focused on M&A, including the divestment of Gabonese and Kenyan assets, asset management in Cote D’Ivorie and Jubilee/TEN fields, as well as corporate planning and economic roles. He joined Kirk Lovegrove in October 2025.
Josh Kallos
Graduating with a master’s degree in chemistry, Josh joined KLC as an analyst at its inception in 2018. Since joining he has gained direct transactional experience across the full range of advisory activities at KLC, including M&A&D and debt advisory, working with clients which include E&Ps, private equity, IOCs and Supermajors. Josh typically leads the firm’s modelling and valuation work and supports most project work. Transactions Josh has worked on include the sale of JX Nippon E&P UK and the acquisition by SierraCol of Occidental Colombia.
Thomas Doggart
Graduated with a bachelor’s degree in finance from The University of Notre Dame Australia, Thomas joined KLC in 2025 with 1.5 years’ experience in energy and natural resources advisory. He assists on modelling, valuation, and all general project work.
Mandy Dring
Mandy is the Office Manager for the London headquarters of Kirk Lovegrove. Her responsibilities include all finance operations, premises management, liaising with IT support, HR administration and managing most of the firm’s day-to-day supplier relationships. She is also involved in marketing activities and organising internal and client events. Mandy worked for Harrison Lovegrove & Co from 1999 to 2007, and joined Kirk Lovegrove in September 2020.
Debbie Barrett
Debbie is the Administrative & Marketing Assistant at Kirk Lovegrove. She runs the office reception, organises travel and entertainment, as well as client marketing events and activities. She also assists and fills in for Mandy with general office administration. Debbie joined Kirk Lovegrove in June 2021.