Executive Vice President of Exploration for Shell, Ceri Powell, talks to us about her life and career - and how it felt to be described (in Fortune Magazine) as the 21st most powerful woman in the world.

Through researching the carbonate deposits in her country’s back yard, a geotechnical engineer is pioneering industry advances on the seafloor.

Mahmoud Abdulbaqi, retired VP of E&P at Saudi Aramco, and one of the founders of the Bahrain GEO series of conferences, tells us about his career and his belief that the way forward for the industry is through finding, educating, training and retaining the right people.

Setting out to explore for hydrocarbons, Noble Energy’s Susan Cunningham found herself on a journey of self-exploration, which led to a host of discoveries beyond her wildest imagination.

Although recently retired, Reg Nelson is still aiming for more in petroleum, minerals and public life.

Ian Forrest was a founder member of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. Raised in one of the poorer parts of Glasgow in Scotland, he flew with the RAF in World War II before going on to explore for hydrocarbons in many parts of the world. Here he tells us about his long and exciting life in oil.

A geologist’s career on the North Slope helped lead to the discovery of North America’s largest oil field and, later, his own geological find.

Surviving the Great Alaska Earthquake was a historical achievement for American geologist Ruth A.M. Schmidt. Other feats were revealed only after her death.

Benjamin Asante, until recently a senior geoscientist at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, has ridden the wave of Ghana’s national development. Although his story is full of significant and unusual personal firsts, it also reflects the rapid economic and social development of a postcolonial African state.

Dr. Robert E. Sheriff learned early in his career “to never withhold information or ideas for later use,” leaving a lasting legacy to his family, the geophysics community, and our society.

Eddy Belle is passionate about the hydrocarbon potential of the Seychelles Islands, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of East Africa – and also about their natural and historical heritage and their excellence as a tourist destination.

For almost 50 years, Derek Fairhead, founder and President of Getech, has studied the earth’s gravity and magnetic data. Now, close to retirement from the rapidly expanding AIM-listed company he has helped to build, he reviews a career.

Duncan Clarke is one of the best known names in the upstream oil industry as an advisor to governments and oil companies, the author of a number of books, founder and chairman of Global Pacific & Partners, and the co-host (with senior partner and chief executive, Babette van Gessel) of the landmark and highly-popular annual Africa Oil Week/Africa Upstream Conference, held in Cape Town. But how did an economist from Southern Africa get involved with the oil industry at all?

Lee Krystinik, who recently retired as President of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, tells us why he thinks the organisation is a vital resource for the industry – and why the petroleum geologist is a natural risk-taker, both at work and play.

Professor Ken Glennie has spent a lifetime at the forefront of the oil industry. His achievements range from producing some of the first maps of turbidites in the field, to being contributor and editor of the seminal work on the North Sea. He talks to GeoExpro about his exciting, productive and very full career.