Houston energy leaders score wins at annual regional entrepreneur competition

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These Houston-area executives were recognized by EY's annual regional awards. Photos courtesy

You might say that four Houston executives with ties to the energy sector are energized about an award they just received.

The four executives recently were named winners in the Gulf South division of the Entrepreneur Of The Year awards program. They’ll now compete at the national level.

The one winner who works directly in the energy industry is Roger Jenkins, president and CEO of Houston-based Murphy Oil. Jenkins rose to the company’s top positions in 2013. He joined Murphy Oil in 2001 as a drilling manager in Malaysia.

Jenkins earned a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from Louisiana State University and an MBA from Harvard University’s business school.

Murphy Oil is an oil and natural gas exploration and production company that operates primarily onshore in the U.S. and Canada, and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.

A Fortune 1000 company founded in 1944, Murphy Oil generated revenue of nearly $4 billion in 2022.

In 2020, the company announced it was shuttering its headquarters in El Dorado, Arkansas, as well as its location in Calgary, Canada, and consolidating its operations into a new main office in Houston. About 190 Murphy Oil employees worked in El Dorado and Calgary.

“Our ongoing execution excellence across our significant offshore backlog and over 1,000 oil-weighted onshore locations will ensure that we will remain a long-term sustainable company,” Jenkins told Wall Street analysts in May 2023.

While not exactly an energy company, Solugen's co-founders — Gaurab Chakrabarti, CEO, and Sean Hunt, CTO — are representing the clean chemicals space within the energy transition.

Solugen, founded in 2016, makes and distributes specialty chemicals derived from feedstock. The startup is reportedly valued at more than $2 billion. To date, Solugen has raised $642.2 million, according to Crunchbase.

In naming Solugen one of the most innovative companies of 2022, Fast Company noted that the carbon-negative process embraced by Solugen and the startup’s “ability to sell flexible amounts of chemicals to companies looking to lower their own footprint have helped the company make inroads in a traditionally slow-moving industry.”

Another Houston executive with connections to the energy sector also is regional Entrepreneur Of The Year winners.

Ludmila Golovine is president and CEO of Houston-based MasterWord Services. The company provides translation and interpretation services in more than 400 languages for clients in sectors like energy, health care, and tech. The woman-owned business launched in 1993.

“It is a great honor for me and for MasterWord to be recognized alongside the other EY Entrepreneur Of The Year winners,” Golovine says in a news release about the Entrepreneur Of The Year honor.

In all, 10 executives from Houston-based companies were hailed as 2023 regional winners in the Entrepreneur Of The Year program, run by professional services firm EY. Aside from Jenkins, Golovine, Walker, and Smith, they are:

Steve Altemus, president and CEO of space exploration company Intuitive Machines.
Mark Walker, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Houston-based Direct Digital Holdings, and Keith Smith, co-founder and president. Direct Digital Holdings operates advertising platforms for clients in sectors such as energy, health care, travel and financial services.
Daryl Dudum and Matthew Hadda, founders and co-CEOs of Specialty1 Partners. The company provides business services to dental surgery practices.
Mohammad Millwala, founder and CEO of DM Clinical Research. The company operates 13 sites for clinical trials.

Also grabbing a regional award is Omair Tariq, co-founder and CEO of Austin-based Cart.com. The company, which provides software and services to online merchants, relocated its headquarters from Houston to Austin in 2021. Tariq remains in Houston, though.

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Italian clean energy co. selects The Woodlands for North American HQ

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An Italian renewable energy company has picked The Woodlands for its North American headquarters.

AB Energy USA will occupy about 11,000 square feet in The Woodlands Towers at The Waterway. The company expects to add about 45 jobs in The Woodlands this year. Beginning in 2027, AB Energy USA will add another 30 jobs over a five-year period.

The new headquarters will be the corporate and governance hub for all of AB Energy’s North American subsidiaries. AB Energy, an arm of Italy-based AB, supplies renewable natural gas systems for industrial, commercial and data center customers. AB has operated in the U.S. since 2014.

“Establishing our North American headquarters in the Energy Capital of the World is a strategic step in AB’s long-term commitment to the U.S. market,” Paolo Ruggeri, North American CEO for AB Energy USA, said in a news release. “Houston gives us access to world-class engineering and energy talent, and strengthens our ability to attract and grow a high-performing team.”

Jevon Gibb, CEO of The Woodlands Area Economic Development Partnership, said several markets competed for AB Energy’s North American headquarters.

“AB’s decision to establish its North American headquarters here demonstrates The Woodlands’ competitiveness for both international companies and energy sector leaders,” Gibb said.

40+ teams to pitch at annual CERAWeek clean energy competition

energy venture day

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, the Houston Energy Transition Initiative (HETI), the Texas Entrepreneurship Exchange for Energy (TEX-E) and the Ion have named the 30-plus energy ventures and teams that will pitch at the 2026 Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition during CERAWeek this month.

The selected ventures are "driving efficiency and advancements toward the energy transition," according to the Rice Alliance. Each will each present a 3.5-minute pitch before a network of investors and industry partners during CERAWeek's Agora program on Wednesday, March 25, from noon-5:30 p.m.

The competition is divided up into the TEX-E university track, in which Texas student-led energy startups compete for $50,000 in cash prizes, and the industry ventures track.

Teams competing in the TEX-E Prize track include:

GOES
Quantum Power System
Quas
Resonant Thermal Systems
Srijan

The industry track is subdivided into three additional tracks, spanning materials to clean energy and will feature 37 companies. A group of expert judges will name the top three companies from each industry track. The winner of the CERAWeek competition will also have the chance to advance and compete for the $1 million investment prize at the Startup World Cup in November 2026.

Teams come from around the world, including several Houston-based ventures, such as Agellus Tank Robotics, Capwell Services and Corrolytics.

The full list of companies pitching at CERAWeek includes:

Agellus Tank Robotics
Airovation Technologies
Anax Power
Armeta
ATS Energy
Capwell Services
CarbonLume
Cogniprise
Corrolytics
Daphne Technology
Gemini Energy
Grid8
H Quest Vanguard
intcom
Ionada Canada
Junipix
Kunin Technologies
LAVA Power
Licube
LNK Energies
Maverick X
Membravo
Mirico
Mocean Energy
Monitorai
OCOchem
Oleo
Pix Force
PolyJoule
Power to Hydrogen
Sotaog
Spotlight
Tierra Climate
Verdagy
Via Separations
Vycarb
ZettaJoule

Those not attending CERAWeek can catch these companies and more than a dozen others at a pitch preview at the Ion. The free Pitch Preview will be held Tuesday, March 24, from 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Click here to register.

Additional companies pitching during the free preview include:

Ammobia
Arolytics
Ayrton Energy
ChainWeave
Cybereum
Energytech
ENP Technologies
KP Labs
Mcatalysis
Mitico
Mote
Nanos
New Horizon Oil and Gas
Predyct
Salem Robotics
Toluai

Two Rice University student teams took home top prizes during last year's TEX-E competition, while ventures from New Jersey, Wyoming and Virgina won in their respective industry tracks. See the full list of last year's winners here.

ExxonMobil to move legal home to Texas, citing business-friendliness

ExxonMobil is poised to move its legal headquarters from New Jersey to Texas in search of a more friendly business environment, the company announced March 10.

The board of directors for the largest U.S.-based oil producing company, which already runs its operations from the Houston suburb of Spring, unanimously recommended to its shareholders that they vote to redomicile the company in Texas.

Shareholders will vote on the change at the company’s annual meeting on May 27. If successful, it will move Exxon’s legal home for the first time since it registered in New Jersey in 1882 as Standard Oil Company — the company later changed its name to Exxon, then merged with Mobil Oil Corp.

“Over the past several years, Texas has made a noticeable effort to embrace the business community,” ExxonMobil Chair and CEO Darren Woods wrote in a statement Tuesday. “In doing so, it has created a policy and regulatory environment that can allow the company to maximize shareholder value. Aligning our legal home with our operating home, in a state that understands our business and has a stake in the company’s success, is important.”

The proposed move will not affect the company’s business operations or employee locations, the company said.

ExxonMobil has been headquartered in Texas since 1989, and about 30% of its employees currently work in the state.

The location of a company’s incorporation dictates the legal, tax and regulatory landscape for the business.

Exxon would join Tesla, Space X and Coinbase as major U.S. companies to redomicile in Texas in recent years as the state moves to become more business friendly.

In 2023, the Legislature passed and Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law that created the Texas Business Court and the 15th Court of Appeals, specialized legal venues designed to handle business and commercial disputes. Those courts began operating in 2024.

Last year, the Legislature also approved a law that made it more difficult to sue board members of companies incorporated in Texas.

“Freed from the stranglehold of over-regulation, Texas is where global brand leaders thrive and jobs for hardworking Texans grow,” Abbott wrote in a Tuesday statement. “I thank ExxonMobil for their decision to redomicile in Texas and for their long-standing partnership with our state. With this decision, Texas will further dominate the corporate landscape and ensure our economic growth reaches new heights.”

Exxon noted the creation of the business courts and other recent legal reforms made by Texas in its statement announcing the decision.

“In making its recommendation, the Board considered Texas’ legal and regulatory environment, including its modernized business statutes and the Texas Business Court, which is designed to resolve complex disputes efficiently,” the statement said.

Texas has benefited from growing frustration among company executives with traditional corporate havens of New Jersey and Delaware. New Jersey sued Exxon in 2022, alleging the company contributed to climate change, which forced the state to pay for cleanup after natural disasters. The lawsuit was dismissed last year.

Delaware remains the nation’s top state for U.S. companies’ legal home.

Coinbase’s CEO wrote last year that the company was reincorporating from Delaware to Texas because the Lone Star State’s legal framework is more predictable and efficient. Tesla reincorporated from Delaware to Texas after a 2024 court ruling ordered CEO Elon Musk to give up a compensation package, finding that the package’s shareholder approval process was “deeply flawed.”

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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

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