Team

Robert “Bob” Milius joined Apex in October 2017 as Chief Financial Officer with over 20 years of global corporate finance and investment banking experience.

Prior to joining Apex, Bob served in banking roles as a for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and has lived in the Middle East providing M&A and capital raising services to public and private companies and Government related entities throughout the energy and power value chain.  He has also worked in other banking roles and was based in New York.  In addition to strategic advisory and corporate finance work, Bob has experience in complex structured and project finance transactions in the energy sector, including both in the MENA region and elsewhere around the world.

Bob received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Nicolas Evanoff joined Apex as General Counsel and Vice President, Commercial in July 2022, after serving as outside general counsel and company secretary since December 2019.  Prior to joining Apex, he served as general counsel and chief legal officer for publicly traded companies on the New York, Johannesburg and London stock exchanges engaged in petroleum exploration and production in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Republic of Georgia and Kazakhstan.  Nick also has experience in senior executive and legal positions in the international offshore drilling industry, including leadership of the Asia/Middle East regional legal function for Transocean, based in Jakarta, Indonesia and general counsel of Vantage Drilling.   His thirty-year legal career began in Houston, Texas with the law firm of Baker Botts, LLP.

A chemical engineering graduate of Texas A&M University, Nick studied law at the University of Houston Law Center, where he graduated magna cum laude, then studied international law in Germany as a Fulbright scholar.  His primary expertise is in corporate and securities law, mergers and acquisitions, finance, corporate governance and commercial agreements in the petroleum sector.

Jacob Owolabi joined Apex in February 2017.

Prior to joining Apex, he served in multiple finance and operations analyst roles with various upstream E&P businesses.

He received a bachelor’s degree from Rice University.

Raed Saba joined Apex in May 2017 as Deputy Country Manager and Exploration Manager and brings over 29 years of experience working with Shell in geoscience and leadership roles; including assignments in Egypt, Kazakhstan and the Netherlands. Prior to joining Apex, he was the Government Relation Manager and Senior Country Advisor and was the Shell Egypt Exploration Manager prior to that position.

Raed also served in Total and Western Geophysical in different technical assignments.

He received his bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in geology and geophysics from Cairo University.

Ihab Ismail joined Apex in February 2017 as the Accounting Manager and became Sr. Finance Manager at Jan 2022. Prior to joining Apex, he served as the finance manager in foreign oil companies and as a board member of the joint venture operating companies operating in Egypt including Tri Ocean Energy, EnQuest and Statoil Egypt. He has also worked for Apache Egypt, Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company, Qarun Petroleum Company and Coopers & Lybrand Including assignments in Algeria, Azerbaijan, and Norway.
He brings 32 years of experience with strong knowledge in oil & gas finance, accounting, tax, ERP system implementations and procurement. Ihab had been responsible for multi-fund budgets ranging from $10 million to $600 million.
Ihab holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Ain Shams University, and certificates in accounting, finance, HSE & management from the University of North Texas(Houston), Southern Methodist University(SMU-Dallas), American Management Association(NYC) and Statoil Academy.

Ali Soliman joined Apex in November 2017 as Regional Drilling Manager and brings over 35+ years of experience with drilling and operations. Prior to joining Apex, he was managing a consulting business. Prior to his consulting services he served as the Drilling Manager Tethys Petroleum Limited (Dubai-Tajikistan). Ali has also worked for Energean Oil & Gas, Oil Search, Regal, Tullow, Merlon, Reed Hycalog, Phoenix Resources, Khalda Petroleum Company and Suez Oil Company.

Ali received his bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from Cairo University.

Mohamed Ghareeb joined Apex in November 2016 as Regional IT Manager , and became Regional Sr. Information & Communication Technologies Manager in Jan 2022. Prior to joining Apex he was the Regional IT Manager MEA region for Medtronic, the global medical device giant. He has also worked as a Senior systems administrator for Apache Egypt and has experience in other industries such FMCG, Technology and pharmaceutical.

Mohamed has been successful aligning business and technology through applying best industry practices, improved standards, governance and effective communication and continuous service improvement.

Mohamed Ghareeb received his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Tanta University, ITIL Expert Certificate in IT Service Management and Project Management Professional from PMI Institute. Mohamed has several professional, IT and leadership certificates from Microsoft, Cisco and Axelos.

Ashraf Elmanawy joined Apex in January 2018 as Contracts & Procurement Manager and brings over 28 years of experience. Prior to joining Apex, he served as the Contracts Manager for GUPCO, Petzed, BP Egypt and NPC.

Ashraf received his bachelor’s degree in commerce from Ain Shams University. He is a full member of CIPS UK, has paralegal knowledge of work-related matters, qualified to join CIArb UK, along with numerous other certifications in the contracting and supply chain disciplines.

Ashraf is a member of the CRCICA Panel of Experts, assigned as co-Arbitrator for a CRCICA case, and volunteer founder and vice-chair of CIPS Egypt Branch.

Taher Gado joined Apex in May, 2019 as Health, Safety and Environmental Manager. Prior to joining Apex, Taher was working as a Consultant with the HSE Capacity Building Program initiated by the Minister of Petroleum as part of the Egyptian Oil and Gas sector modernization program.

He began his career as a MWD/LWD Field Engineer for five years then started a career in HSE in 2001 with British Gas in Egypt and later Transglobe in Egypt along with several temporary international assignments.

Taher received his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Alexandria University and master’s in environmental, health and safety management from University of Portsmouth. He also earned a post graduate diploma in safety, risk and reliability engineering from Heriot Watt University and a national general certificate from NEBOSH in the UK.

Mahmoud El Khamissy joined Apex in April 2021 as Projects Manager bringing over 39 years of experience in International Projects Management and Controls. Prior to Apex, he worked for Shell International for 23 years as Projects Manager and Project Services Manager in Houston, Malaysia and Egypt. Prior to that he worked for ADNOC in Abu Dhabi and ENPPI in Egypt as a Project Manager.

Mahmoud received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Ain Shams University in Cairo. He is a PMP and completed an 18 months Post Graduate Study in Project Management in Russelsheim, Germany.

Ihab Toma currently serves as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of Vantage Drilling. He also currently serves as Board Director for Apex International and 3T/Drilling Systems and sits on the Executive Board of Directors of IADC, International Association of Drilling Contractors.

 Mr. Toma has over 35 years of experience in the oilfield industry, spanning many functional positions, including line-management, sales and marketing, Geoscience information solutions, operations, HR, and R&D.

He has previously served as a Senior Advisor to First Reserve Corporation and in various executive capacities and leading positions at Transocean and Schlumberger.

His positions with Transocean included Executive Vice President – Operations, Executive Vice President – Chief of Staff and Senior Vice President – Marketing and Corporate Planning.

Prior to Transocean, he spent 23 years with Schlumberger at various management and functional positions with global and regional responsibility and with assignments in Europe, North America, Africa, Middle East and Asia. Most notably Ihab served as President of Schlumberger’s Information Solutions business  and as VP Sales and Marketing for Oilfield Services – Europe, Africa and Caspian.

Mr. Toma began his career with Schlumberger in 1986.  He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering from Cairo University, Egypt.

Previous Directorships: AGR Group (Vice Chairman), Engström & Engstöm (Chairman), Fara-Rever and Paradigm Geophysical Corp.

Graeme Sword is a co-founding Partner of Bluewater. Graeme has particular expertise in the worldwide oil and gas reserves and oilfield services sectors of the industry.

He has over 20 years of private equity experience. Prior to joining Bluewater, he was Partner and Head of Oil & Gas at 3i, a UK-based private equity firm. Prior to joining 3i in 1995, Graeme was a Brand Manager at Unilever. Graeme holds a M.A. (Hons) degree in Geography and Political Science from the University of Dundee.

Mr. Sword is currently a board member of Apex International, Siccar Point Energy, Wellesley Petroleum, Mime Petroleum, Unique Maritime Group, 3t and ROVOP.

Since April 2020, Luc Grillet has been the Chief Operations Officer working as IFC’s Regional Head of Operations (RHO) for the Latin America & Caribbean (LAC) region, at headquarters in Washington DC.

From April 2015-March 2020, Luc Grillet served as Senior Manager overseeing IFC’s investment & advisory activities in Central America & Caribbean based in Panama. He holds a Doctorate in Economics and MA in International Economics from Universitaet Konstanz, Germany, and MBA from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

Luc Grillet has nearly 3 decades of international finance experience, including more than 20 years with IFC and several years with Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and the Inter-American Development Bank’s private sector department.  His scope of experience includes multiple roles focusing on infrastructure, manufacturing, services, and energy and extractive industry sectors in areas of business development, debt and equity investment structuring, portfolio supervision, advisory services, and credit risk management, and covering multiple regions (Europe & Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, East Asia Pacific, South Asia, and LAC) previously based in Frankfurt am Main, Caracas, Washington DC, Lima, Buenos Aires, New Delhi, Istanbul, and Panama.