Speaker: Lee M. Tillman, Ph.D.
Chairman, President and CEO, Marathon Oil 

Topic: Unconventional Thinking: Re-Shaping the Global Energy Dynamic

Lee Tillman is chairman, president and CEO of Marathon Oil Corporation and a member of the Marathon Oil Corporation Board of Directors. He joined the Company in August 2013. Prior to joining Marathon Oil, he served as vice president of engineering for ExxonMobil Development Company (a project design and execution company), where he was responsible for all global engineering staff engaged in major project concept selection, front-end design and engineering. He served as North Sea production manager and lead country manager for subsidiaries of ExxonMobil in Stavanger, Norway, from 2007 and 2010, and as acting vice president, ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company from 2006 to 2007. Mr. Tillman began his career in the oil and gas industry at Exxon Corporation in 1989 as a research engineer and has extensive operations management and leadership experience that has included assignments in Jakarta, Indonesia; Aberdeen, Scotland; Stavanger, Norway; Malabo, Equatorial Guinea; Dallas and New Orleans.He is a board member of the American Petroleum Institute and the American Exploration & Production Council, and a member of the University of Houston Energy Advisory Board and the Chemical and Engineering Advisory Councils of Texas A&M University. He is also a member of the National Petroleum Council, the Business Roundtable and the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Mr. Tillman is an emeritus board member of Spindletop Charities, a board member of the American Heart Association, and serves as a member of the Celebration of Reading Committee within the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation. Mr. Tillman earned a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Texas A&M University and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Auburn University.

Unconventional Thinking – Abstract

Technological disruption has changed the face of the world and the face of energy. The power of the internet, data analytics and AI is re-defining all business models at a pace never seen before. Change is the constant and the message is clear—adapt or become obsolete. I will address how unconventional thinking has taken the US from energy scarcity to energy security in just over a decade. It is a success story written by entrepreneurs, engineers, geoscientists and most importantly innovators that continue to push the boundary of the possible to deliver the energy that the world needs. It is that same innovation that will allow us to address the dual challenge of meeting the world’s growing energy demand while responding to the impacts of climate change. Failure on either front is simply not acceptable. Access to reliable, affordable and sustainable energy is the great social equalizer and has done more to power human progress than any other industry. With over one billion people living in energy poverty today, that mandate will not change and oil and gas will remain an essential part of the transition to a lower-carbon economy. These are generational challenges and they will require the best and brightest minds to write the next chapter in unconventional thinking.