Josh Okpalanne | Business Development
Joined Vitol: 2013
Hometown: Lagos, Nigeria
Current Office: Accra, Ghana
Role: Business Development (supporting downstream business in Ghana)
Education: BSc Chemical Engineering Drexel University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Interests: Football, renovating schools in hometown
I got called by a recruiter who asked if I’d heard of a company called Vitol, and I said of course! I’d been working in engineering for quite some time and wanted a more commercial role. I knew about the company but didn’t know the scale it was operating at.
I knew that trading houses were organised a bit differently. If you find an opportunity at Vitol then you are empowered to go out after it. Previously I had been working for a much larger organisation that had lots of layers of bureaucracy. Vitol is a very agile company where things move very quickly. I started as a Commercial Analyst in Houston, then moved to the Derivatives desk in London where I was shadowing the West African business development before I was asked to transfer to Ghana.
There is no company like it. It’s a very unique place. The beauty is that there is not much red tape. I’m working with a lot of smart people so you have to be on your A-game every day. It’s a constantly challenging environment that rewards hard work.
My role is challenging and merges both my engineering and commercial skillset. I’m currently working in our office in Accra which has the atmosphere of one big family. It’s demanding merging commercial acumen with trying to meet real energy flows in the country. I’m constantly trying to find new opportunities that make sense. They’re not always just out there waiting for you, you need to go out and find them.
When I came to Ghana I helped broker a complex deal with the only refinery in the country. The deal involved taking the crude to the refinery, processing it and taking the products. It was a big deal to coordinate and execute, and I learnt a lot from it. I was able to bring together my engineering and commercial skillsets and was really proud of what I was able to achieve.
The world is going through a massive transition. It couldn’t be a better, more interesting time to think about a career in energy. You could determine what the next stage of the planet’s life is and there’s lots happening in the energy space: wind, solar, geothermal.