Brand Finance Oil & Gas Workshop: Oil & Gas Brand Values in a 4.0 World

David is the Chairman of Brand Finance Plc – the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy. He has worked in the area of branded business, brand, and intangible asset valuation since 1991. He specialised entirely in the field after becoming the Director of Brand Valuation for Interbrand in 1995. He subsequently left Interbrand in 1996 to launch Brand Finance which is celebrating 25 years in business this year.

David represented the British Standards Institution in the working parties responsible for crafting international industry standards: ISO 10668 on Brand Valuation in 2010 and ISO 20671 on Brand Evaluation in 2019.

David is a passionate writer and has authored many articles on brand valuation, published in numerous marketing and finance newspapers and magazines, such as: Financial Times, Accountancy Age, and Marketing Week. He has also lectured on the topic of brand valuation for Harvard, Chicago, and London Business Schools.

David graduated from Bristol University with an English degree, qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in London, and obtained a postgraduate diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). He is a Fellow of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and has a practising certificate with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

Adam Newall is Founder and Managing Director of VI360, Brand Finance’s specialist visual identity management unit, which was established in 2003.

Adam has spent the last twenty years supporting global brands through all parts of the visual identity process, from conception through to implementation and evaluation.

He has led global visual identity management projects in more than 30 countries for clients including 3M, Ashurst, Caterpillar, LNG Canada, Ordnance Survey, Nordea, Shell, Tata and Vodafone.

Adam has published a series of reports on Brand Identity Management Best Practice which examines the developments made by business in all sectors over the past 15 years.

James Welchman is Manager Marketing EMEA for Chevron Lubricants, a position he has held since 2011. In his role he is responsible for the strategic growth agenda for the region. Specifically this means the marketing strategy, channel development, offer creation and execution, communication and digitalization / automation. Previously, James has held leadership roles in Sales & Marketing in North America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, with long-term assignments in USA, South Africa and UK. James began his 25+ career in retail fuels territory management.

A Chartered Marketer with the Chartered Institute of Marketing, James lives near Newbury and is married with four children.

Savio is an Associate Director at Brand Finance. Whilst at Brand Finance, Savio has worked on a number of national and international projects in Airlines, Technology Media & Technology (TMT). Savio also has experience in assignments for technical purposes including, tax and transfer pricing, legal disputes and business combinations. Recently Savio has been a key member for projects for clients such as; Truphone, Vodafone, Heathrow, and Turkish Airlines.Due to the nature of the projects to which he has been involved, Savio has helped devise and recommend strategies to clients so that they were able to utilise the potential of their brand. This advice could range from how best to license and franchise the brand to alterations in the Brand architecture and portfolio management.Savio has a MEng degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering with Management from Imperial College London and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Brand Finance. Prior to Brand Finance he had spells at  Ernst & Young and one of the largest Oil Services Companies.

Omar Zaafrani is the Senior Vice President of Group Communications, at the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). At ADNOC, Zaafrani is responsible for the development and execution of multi-pronged communications strategies that have strengthened ADNOC’s reputation as an industry leader while ensuring the effective and transparent communication of the organization’s transformation, internally and externally, as it adapts to an evolving energy landscape. Zaafrani oversees the communications across the Group, including its 14 subsidiary companies, and is tasked with repositioning the organization domestically and internationally to firmly establish its reputation as a leading national oil company.

A communications and public relations professional, Zaafrani has extensive experience of strategically positioning organizations, senior executives and political figures among key stakeholders and markets. He has developed compelling narratives and communications strategies that connect organizations to the world and its stakeholders, while reinforcing their business objectives. Zaafrani has extensive experience navigating through large scale crisis and change communications, financial communications, as well as brand repositioning programs and strategies. He recently led the communications around the public listing of ADNOC Distribution.

Prior to joining ADNOC, Zaafrani was Head of Energy Communications, at Mubadala, an investment and development company supporting the diversification of Abu Dhabi’s economy, where he oversaw the communication of the Group’s energy portfolio. He has also served as Manager, Corporate Communications at Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company.

In his 30 year career so far with Procter & Gamble and Shell, Rahul has led & grown several multi-billion dollar, global
businesses as P&L head, and helped lead several global brands. Over the years, he has lived and worked in the US,
India, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK. Rahul is currently the Head of Brand Strategy and Stewardship for
the Shell group worldwide, managing strategy and operations for a brand valued at almost US $50 billion. Under his
leadership and tenure, Shells brand value has grown by over +65% in the last 8 years. He is a recognized expert on
defining and embedding Purpose into organisations, frequently invited to share his thinking in international papers,
conferences and podcasts with other experts (eg. Professor Colin Mayer of the Oxford Business School). The
Authority magazine in the US featured him as a Social Impact Hero (link here) in 2022 and his work was also featured
in a 2023 Forbes article (link here). In 2019, he was one of 25 global business leaders across industries recognized as
‘Internationalist of the year’ for redefining contemporary marketing. He and his work have also been featured in
exclusive chapters for two books (‘101 Great Minds’, 2021; ‘Energy Branding’, 2023). Rahul is a member of the global
CMO Masters Circle (ANA), has won two Cannes awards and was one of 6 CMOs who contributed to the ANA Global
Purpose Handbook. In his early years, he was profiled as one of the top 10 young marketing professionals in India by
the Economic Times, ranked as one of the ‘top 50’ most powerful people in Indian advertising/media/marketing
(Pitch magazine), and featured by CNBC India in their show ‘Young Turks.’ More recently, his passion and success has
been in sponsoring the use of technology (AI in particular) to dramatically reshape marketing in Shell worldwide.
From 2012 to 2016, Rahul was the overall business head of the US $4 billion (~2.5 million tonnes/year) Styrene
chemicals business for Shell, leading global team members located in Canada, USA, Netherlands, Germany, China and
Singapore. He has significant experience in structuring and negotiating large value, multi-year B2B deals ($500m-1b
deal value) and in M&A deals of all forms. He was also an active leader in the global plastics industry, partnering with
customers and Washington DC based industry organisations to encourage recycling and other sustainability
initiatives. Prior to this role, he was the head of the LPG business for Shell in 13 markets (US $1.5 billion) where he
managed about 20 plants in Argentina, South Africa and Asian markets, 1500 people, large distribution chains and
complex government relationships. Rahul has strong training and practical exposure from various board and advisory
roles held with government JVs, listed companies, private sector JVs and non profit intermediaries. From 1995 to
2008, Rahul worked for Procter & Gamble in various marketing roles, leading country, regional and global teams. He
worked for them in India, Japan and Singapore in leadership roles worldwide.
Rahul has first class degrees in Economics and business (MBA) from the University of Delhi. He is an alumnus of
Oxford University, having completed the OUBEP program in Business Economics and also the Economics of Mutuality
program. He is an active learner and has completed multiple online certifications from Yale, Northwestern and John
Hopkins Universities among others.
He is an active member of the community as a Board Director and Committee Chair with the Food Bank SG, while
also advising SMEs, startups and mentoring talent. Married to Geetika (a psychotherapist with her private practice)
and with two teens, Rahul enjoys being outdoors, playing music and cooking. One of his passions is to inspire
organisations and young leaders in the private sector to be more purpose driven, leveraging their skills and resources
to make a real difference to the people and ecology of the planet.