Robert A. Solberg - Non-Executive Chairman of the Board
Robert A. Solberg joined the Hyperdynamics Board in August 2009 as non-executive Chairman of the Board.
Mr. Solberg is a retired career senior executive of Texaco Inc., where he served as President of Upstream Commercial Development from 1998 until his retirement in 2002. Earlier he held senior management roles for Texaco's U.S. operations, followed by division president roles in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He became a corporate officer in 1992 and retired after the Chevron merger was completed in early 2002.
Mr. Solberg is currently non-executive chairman of JDR Cable Systems Ltd., which supplies custom cable and subsea connection equipment for the offshore oil & gas industry. He is a past director of both Pioneer Natural Resources, a U.S.-based independent exploration and production company, and Scorpion Offshore, an offshore drilling contractor that made an initial public offering on the Oslo Exchange in 2005 and was successfully merged with Seadrill in 2010.
He is a licensed petroleum engineer and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of North Dakota.
Ray Leonard joined Hyperdynamics as President and Chief Executive Officer in July 2009.
Ray Leonard was born in New York, of a family of Ukrainian ancestry. He received a Bachelor of Science in Geology from the University of Arizona and a Master of Arts in Geology from the University of Texas at Austin. His 19-year career with Amoco was entirely associated with international projects. Initial assignments were in Trinidad, Norway and West Africa.
In 1989, he was appointed the Director of New Ventures for the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China. He was in a unique position to view the political and economic changes taking place. In 1995, he was appointed Vice President for Resource Acquisitions, Amoco Eurasia. In June 1998, he accepted a position as Exploration Vice President for First International Oil Company (FIOC), a newly formed company in Almaty, Kazakstan. He accepted a position as Vice President-Exploration and New Ventures in Moscow for YUKOS, the second largest Russian Oil Company in January 2001 with responsibility for diversifying the YUKOS upstream portfolio out of the core areas of West Siberia and Samara, specifically to East Siberia, the Russian Shelf and Central Asia, and concluding partnership agreements with non-Russian companies.
In January 2005 he joined MOL, the Hungarian Oil and Gas Company with the highest market capitalization (approx 11 billion USD) of any company in Eastern Europe as Senior Vice President for International Exploration and Production. During his two-year tenure the company acquired assets in Russia, Kazakhstan, Oman and Pakistan, made new field discoveries in Pakistan and Kazakhstan and reached peak production of 55,000 BOPD in its Russian venture. He accepted a position in December 2006 with Kuwait Energy Company as Vice President–Eurasia and Exploration.
Member of the Governmental Relations Committee
Herman J. Cohen - Independent Director
Herman J. Cohen joined the Board of Directors in August 2009.
Ambassador Herman J. Cohen is the President of Cohen & Woods International. Established in 1994, the firm provides strategic planning services to African governments and multinational corporations doing business in Africa. The firm is currently under contract to advise the Government of the Republic of Mauritania. A major industrial client is Century Aluminum of Monterey, Calif., which is investing in the Republic of the Congo. The newest client is Contour Global, a New York electric power company that specializes in African power projects.
Cohen retired from the U.S. State Department in November 1993. His last position prior to retirement was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under President George Bush (1989-1993). During his 38-year career with the U.S. Foreign Service, he served in five African countries and twice in France. He was the American Ambassador to Senegal, with dual accreditation to Gambia, from 1977 to 1980. During assignments in Washington, D.C., Cohen served as Special Assistant to President Reagan for African Affairs (1987-1989), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Personnel.
From 1994 to 1998, under contract to the World Bank, Cohen was a Senior Advisor to the Global Coalition for Africa, an intergovernmental policy forum that worked to achieve consensus between donor and African governments on economic development strategies.
Cohen's honors and awards include the French Legion of Honor, the Belgian Order of Leopold II, the U.S. Foreign Service rank of Career Ambassador and the Distinguished Alumni Award of the City College of New York. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy. He is the author of a book on conflict resolution in Africa entitled "Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent" (published by Macmillan/Palgrave in September 2000). This book won the annual award for distinguished writing on diplomatic practice in 2000 conferred by the American Academy of Diplomacy.
Cohen received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the City College of New York and a Master of Arts degree in international relations from the American University.
Lord David Owen joined the Board of Directors in September 2009.
Lord Owen served as Chairman of Yukos International U.K. B.V, part of the Russian oil company Yukos, from 2002 until 2005. He also served as Executive Chairman of Global Natural Energy Ltd, a metals trading company with interests in service stations in the U.K., from 1996 to 2006. Currently, he serves as non-executive Chairman of Europe Steel Ltd, and a Director of Abbott Laboratories Inc. Lord Owen served as a member of the Advisory Board of Terra Firma Capital Partners from 2004 to 2008.
For 26 years, Lord Owen was a member of the British Parliament and since 1992 a member of the House of Lords. In his last position with the British government, he was Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 1977 to 1979. During that time, he was heavily involved in diplomatic activity in both south and west Africa.
Lord Owen was the opposition Labor Party spokesman on energy from 1979 until 1981. He co-founded the British Social Democratic Party in 1981 and served as its leader from 1983 until 1990.
He attended Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he studied medicine, and subsequently specialized in neurology at St. Thomas's Hospital in London.
Fred S. Zeidman joined the Board of Directors in December 2009.
Zeidman has a long and successful track record in finance, investments and management consulting and has served as CEO, Interim CEO and Chairman of the Board of a variety companies, including several in the oil and gas sector.
He currently serves as XRoads Solutions Group as a Principal in the Turnaround and Restructuring and of the University of Texas Health Science System. He also is Chairman of the Board of SulphCo Inc., Chief Restructuring Officer of Transmeridian Exploration, Inc. and Bankruptcy Trustee of AremisSoft Corp. In addition, Zeidman serves on the Board of Compact Power, Inc. in Ft Mill., SC. and Prosperity Bank in Houston.
Zeidman also is currently serving his second term as Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a position to which he was appointed by President George W. Bush in March 2002.
William O. Strange joined the Board of Directors in November 2010.
Mr. Strange was an audit partner with Deloitte & Touche LLP prior to his retirement in May 2005. He joined the international accounting firm in 1964 and became a partner in 1976. During his 41 years with Deloitte he specialized in audits of SEC registrants for a variety of publicly traded energy clients in exploration and production, petrochemicals, pipelines and oil services.
Mr. Strange is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and lives in Houston. He is on the Finance and Audit Committee of the Presbytery of the New Covenant, the governing body for Presbyterian Churches in the Gulf Coast area. He has served as the President of the Petroleum Club of Houston and as a member of the Major Cases Committee of the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy.
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Robert A. Solberg joined the Hyperdynamics Board in August 2009 as non-executive Chairman of the Board. 
Ray Leonard joined Hyperdynamics as President and Chief Executive Officer in July 2009.
Herman J. Cohen joined the Board of Directors in August 2009. 
Lord David Owen joined the Board of Directors in September 2009.
Fred S. Zeidman joined the Board of Directors in December 2009.
William O. Strange joined the Board of Directors in November 2010.