Our team
We believe the network, experience and track record of our management team and board of directors will generate a material pipeline of best-in-class business combination targets.
Our Board and Management Team
Tom Sikorski has served as our Co-Chief Executive Officer and Director since February 2021. Mr. Sikorski has over 25 years’ experience of investing into the international energy and industrial sectors. Having co-founded Bluewater in 2011, Mr. Sikorski currently oversees two of its funds with over $2.5 billion in assets under management.
Before joining Bluewater, Mr. Sikorski served as Managing Director and, starting from 2006, Head of the London office of First Reserve Corporation, a private equity firm targeting investments in the international energy sector. During his tenure at First Reserve, Mr. Sikorski was involved in several notable transactions, including investments into Aquilex, Quanta, Dresser Inc. and Dresser Rand, which together realised over $2.6 bn of proceeds and delivered approximately 3.5x combined deals return on total equity invested.
Mr. Sikorski currently serves on the board of four portfolio companies, comprised of Galileo Technologies, EDGE, Excellence Logging and Severn Glocon. He also provides senior strategic oversight to the boards of GES and GPS Groups, and Authentix. Mr. Sikorski earned his AB degree in economics from Harvard College and his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Graeme Sword has served as our Co-Chief Executive Officer and Director since February 2021. Mr. Sword has over 25 years’ experience of investing into the international energy and energy services sectors. In 2011, he co-founded Bluewater, and has since overseen over 50 transactions during his tenure.
Before joining Bluewater, Mr. Sword served as a partner and Head of Oil and Gas at 3i Group plc (OTC: TGOPF), a UK-based private equity firm, for 16 years. During his tenure at 3i Group, Mr. Sword was involved in several notable transactions, including investments into Vetco International, CH4 Energy, Petrofac Corporation and Dockwise, which together realized over $1.2 billion of proceeds and delivered approximately 3.2x combined deals return on total equity invested.
Mr. Sword currently serves on the board of six portfolio companies, comprised of px Group, Siccar Point Energy, 3t Energy Group, Wellesley Petroleum, Apex International and Unique Group. He is also providing senior strategic oversight to the board of Mime Petroleum. Mr. Sword earned his MA degree in geography and political science at the University of Dundee.
Mark Dickinson has served as our Chief Operating Officer since February 2021. Mr. Dickinson has almost 25 years of private equity investing experience, he joined Bluewater as Managing Director in June 2014 and has served as its Chief Operating Officer since March 2020. Mr. Dickinson is a member of Bluewater’s investment committee and is part of the team responsible for deal sourcing and portfolio management.
Prior to joining Bluewater, Mr. Dickinson served as a partner at Arle Capital Partners, an investment firm specialising in the international energy sector, from April 2011 through September 2013. Before that, he served as a Director at Candover Investments between 2008 and 2011, and as a Partner at 3i Group plc (OTC: TGOPF) from September 1997 through September 2007, specialising in the oil and gas sector globally. During his tenure at 3i Group, Mr. Dickinson was involved in several notable transactions, including investments into Vetco International, CH4 Energy, Marken and Dockwise, which together realized over $1.3 billion of proceeds and delivered approximately 2.9x combined deals return on total equity invested.
Mr. Dickinson currently serves on the boards of six portfolio companies, comprised of Kentech, Influit, Excellence Logging, Techouse, Varel International and EDGE. He also serves as Chairman of The Danny Fullbrook Fearless Foundation, a charity helping young, disadvantaged children fulfil their potential. Mr. Dickinson is an Associate Chartered Accountant and earned his LLB from the University of Hull.
Mandar Kulkarni has served as our Chief Financial Officer since February 2021. Mr. Kulkarni joined Bluewater in April 2017 and serves as Chief Financial Officer, responsible for its various operational functions. Before joining Bluewater, Mr. Kulkarni served as Senior Vice President and Head of Finance for Bain Capital Private Equity’s European operations from April 2006 to April 2017.
During his tenure at Bain Capital, Mr. Kulkarni’s experience included substantial IPO preparation and execution on a number of IPOs listed by Bain Capital’s European portfolio investments, including Trinseo (NYSE: TSE), Atento (NYSE: ATTO), Bravida (Stockholm: BRAV.ST), Nexi (Milan: NEXI.MI), IMCD (Amsterdam: IMCD.AS), Ibstock (London: IBST.L), Maison du Monde (Paris: MDM.PA) and Worldpay (NYSE: WP, LSE: WPY – taken private in 2019). Prior to Bain Capital, Mr. Kulkarni worked at Cargill Inc., serving as Financial Controller from August 2000 to July 2004 and as Finance Project Manager from August 2004 to March 2006. Prior to that, he served as a Senior Auditor at Ernst & Young from June 1996 to August 2000.
Mr. Kulkarni is a qualified Chartered Accountant and earned his bachelor’s degree in business and economics from the University of Mumbai and his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Jerker Johansson has served as our Chairman since February 2021. Mr. Johansson co-founded Bluewater in 2011 and serves as its Executive Chairman. Before joining Bluewater, Mr. Johansson served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of UBS Investment Bank from 2008 to 2009. Prior to that, he worked at Morgan Stanley for 22 years, finishing his tenure as Global Head of Institutional Equities.
Mr. Johansson currently serves on the boards of several companies, including Influit, Stena International, Stena Fastigheter, FAM AB and International Advisory Board for the Stockholm Resilience Centre. He also provides senior strategic oversight to the boards of GES and GPS Groups. Mr. Johansson earned his MSc degree in economics from the Stockholm School of Economics and his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and a trustee of The Morgan Library and Museum.
Anders Runevad has extensive experience of the European energy sector with particular insight into offshore wind, having served as Group President and CEO for Vestas for six years. Today, Mr. Runevad remains a board member at Vestas, as well as sitting on the boards of Schneider Electric and Nilfisk.
Mr. Runevad’s tenure as CEO at Vestas ran from 2013 to 2019, overseeing the company’s ascendance to one of the pre-eminent actors in the global offshore wind sector. He has also served as the Chairman of the Board for MHI Vestas Offshore Wind – a joint venture between Vestas and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. He has also served as EU Regional President for Ericsson.
Mr. Runevad holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Lund, Sweden.
Nicoletta Giadrossi is an experienced NED with a global portfolio of directorships in listed and PE-backed companies in natural resources and energy, with extensive knowledge of ESG, sustainability and value creation in the energy transition context. Ms Giadrossi is currently Chairman of Cairn Energy plc, a premier independent UK E&P focused on natural gas.
Ms Giadrossi is also Chairman of TecHouse asa, a PE-backed clean-tech engineering company based in Norway; a member of the board and the Sustainability Strategy Committee of Falck Renewables SpA, a renewables operator and services provider operating in the US and Europe; and the Chair of the Remuneration Committee of Koninklijke Vopak N.V, a global storage and terminals operator for petrochemicals, biofuels, and new energies. She also sits on the Sustainability Committee and chairs the Remuneration Committee in Brembo spa, a leading automotive solutions provider in the e-mobility sector.
In addition to the above, Ms Giadrossi serves as a Senior Advisor to Bain Capital Partners in Europe.
Prior to developing her NED portfolio, Ms Giadrossi has held several executive roles leading global P&Ls in engineering and services focused on energy for Technip, Aker Solutions, Dresser Rand (now Siemens Energy), and GE Oil & Gas (now BH).
Ms Giadrossi holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics and Mathematics from Yale University. She is an Italian citizen.
Leonid Mukhamedov is a seasoned executive in the energy sector, having held a wealth of leadership positions in roles across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and CIS. His experience spans datacenters, Industry 4.0, energy efficiency and decarbonisation, and digital transformation. He is passionate about sustainability and gender equality and has a track record for promoting these values.
Mr. Mukhamedov most recently served as Chief Strategy Officer for Schneider Electric, having previously served as Executive VP Europe, Zone President and Senior VP for Central and Eastern Europe at the same company over a period of more than a decade. Before joining Schneider, he was Former General Manager South East EMEA at APC.
Mr. Mukhamedov earned a Master of Science degree in radio physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, before conducting research into radio physics at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden.
John Kennedy has 49 years’ experience in the energy sector as Executive or Investor and has been involved with several billion dollars’ worth of investments, mergers and acquisitions. He began his career in Schlumberger as a Wireline Engineer in 1972 after qualifying as an electrical engineer at University in Dublin.
Mr Kennedy spent five years with Schlumberger after which he joined Dresser Industries as a Petro Physicist in 1978 and rising to President /CEO of Dresser Atlas in 1978. Upon the merger of Dresser and Halliburton in 1996, Mr Kennedy was appointed an executive Vice President on the corporate staff where he remained until 2001. At that time, Halliburton had revenues of USD 13 billion.
In 2002 , Mr Kennedy established his own private equity company, Amko Capital, where he originated several energy transactions in collaboration with a multiplicity of major private equity houses such as Candover, 3i, LDC, Investcorp, and Summit Partners. Amongst the most prominent of these transactions was Wellstream Holdings plc, which was acquired by General Electric for $1.4bn in 2010; Vetco International which was sold to General Electrics for $1.7bn in 2007; Welltec A/s which partnered with Exor in 2016; Bifold FluidPower ltd; Hydrasun ltd, and Sabre Oil & Gas Ltd.
Mr Kennedy has sat on the board or chaired a number of public companies amongst which are United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (2005-06), Wellstream Holdings pls (2007-10), CRH plc (2009-15), Lamprell plc (2015-18). He is currently Chairman of Enermech ltd, a Carlyle sponsored private equity investment and chairman of Sonadrill, a joint venture drilling company between Sonangol and Seadrill. In these various capacities, he has sat on the remuneration, governance and appointments sub-committees of respective companies.
Mr Kennedy holds an M.Sc (1993) from London Business School where he also received a Sloan Fellowship and holds a BE (1972) from University College Dublin. He is a Chartered Engineer (C.Eng) and fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (FIEE).
Mark Gainsborough has spent 40 years in the energy business and until last year was the Executive Vice President for New Energies at Shell. With an investment mandate of $1-2 billion per annum, he had direct experience of most of the technologies and businesses which need to scale up in the transition to a net zero carbon economy. This includes investment in electric renewables and storage, hydrogen, biofuels and nature based solutions. He was also responsible for Shell’s Corporate Venture Capital fund, including investments in power related technologies and advanced mobility.
Prior to New Energies, Mr Gainsborough spent 20 years in global strategy and business leadership roles, with assignments in the UK, Netherlands, Turkey and Singapore. As EVP Global Commercial he ran a number of Shell’s large scale marketing businesses including Shell Lubricants, the global category leader. Prior to that he was Global Head of Strategy for Shell’s refining and marketing business and completed a number of multi-billion transaction while leading the Shell Downstream M&A team. He worked extensively on a range of environmental and sustainability issues during his Shell career and completed a Masters Degree in Environmental Policy in 2008. He is a Fellow of the UK Energy Institute.
Mr Gainsborough is a passionate advocate of the need to accelerate the energy transition in the coming decade and is currently supporting a number of businesses in their contribution to net zero through board, advisory and mentoring roles. He currently serves on the board of Corvus, a leader in marine battery storage systems; Husk Power Systems, a leader in bringing electricity to energy poor consumers through renewable mini-grids in South Asia and Africa; and Greenko, one of the leading large scale renewable power developers in India.
Peter Wallace currently serves as Chairman of Applied Industrial Technologies and of Rogers Corporation, as well as Director of Curtiss Wright. Mr. Wallace is an experienced business leader with more than 40 years’ experience in sectors including oil and gas, power transmission and industrial manufacturing.
Previous roles include CEO and Director of Gardner Denver; President, CEO and Director at Robbins & Myers President and CEO of IMI Norgren Group, and of Rexnord Corporation.
Mr. Wallace holds an MBA from the University of Wisconsin and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University.
Please Note
The past performance of our management team or their respective affiliates is not a guarantee of either:
(i) success with respect to any business combination we may consummate; or
(ii) that we will be able to identify a suitable candidate for our initial business combination. You should not rely on the historical record of our management team’s or their respective affiliates’ performance as indicative of any future performance.
An investment in our Company is not an investment in Bluewater. Members of our management team and our board are not obligated to devote any specific number of hours to our matters, but they intend to devote as much of their time as they deem necessary to our affairs until we have completed our initial business combination. The amount of time that any members of our management team or our board will devote in any time period will vary based on whether a target business has been selected for our initial business combination and the current stage of the business combination process.