Howard Stack, Independent Non-Executive Chairman

Mr Stack was appointed to the board of directors as independent non-executive chairman on 17 December 2009, and appointed to the audit and risk management committee.

He brings considerable value to the company in achieving its goal of becoming a major upstream energy company.

Mr Stack has served on the boards of Australian National Industries Limited, Flight Centre Limited, Data #3 Limited, Voxson Limited, Eastern Corporation Limited, Diversified Mining Services Limited and Magnetica Limited. He currently provides legal and commercial advice on fuel and infrastructure projects including Bayswater and Liddell Power Station projects in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. He was previously Managing Partner of the Australian law firm Feez Ruthning during which time he negotiated the merger with Allen, Allen& Hemsley. He is currently Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Brisbane Grammar School.

Ron Prefontaine, Executive Director

Mr Prefontaine served as Managing Director following Bow's registration on 17 September 2004. In April 2010 he was appointed Executive Director as part of an executive restructure, focusing on technical and business development.

He has over 31 years exploration and production experience in the petroleum industry.

Since 1994 he has consulted to the industry in technical and management positions, which included being a Director for Arrow Energy Ltd (Arrow) from 2001 to 2005. At Arrow, Mr Prefontaine was in charge of its early successful CSG exploration program.

Mr Prefontaine founded Australian CBM Pty Ltd (now owned by Arrow Energy Ltd), Permian Oil Pty Ltd (now owned by BG Group), SEQOil Pty Ltd (now owned by Bow Energy Ltd) and Ocellaris Oil Pty Ltd (now owned by Bow Energy Ltd).

Mr Prefontaine is past President of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia (Queensland) and the Queensland Petroleum Exploration Society. In 2008, he was presented with the inaugural John Doran Good Oil Conference lifetime achievement award in recognition of his service to the oil and gas industry.

Stephen Bizzell, Non-Executive Director

Mr Bizzell has been a Non-Executive Director since the time of registration of the Company, 17 September 2004. He is a Chartered Accountant and early in his career was employed in the Corporate Finance division of Ernst & Young and the Corporate Tax division of Coopers & Lybrand.

Stephen has had considerable experience and success in the fields of corporate restructuring, debt and equity financing, and mergers and acquisitions, and has over 15 years corporate finance and public company management experience in the resources sector in Australia and Canada.

Mr Bizzell is the Chairman of boutique investment banking and funds management group Bizzell Capital Partners and Executive Director of Dart Energy Ltd. Stephen was also an Executive Director of Arrow Energy Ltd from 1999 until its recent acquisition by Shell and PetroChina, for $3.5 billion. He was instrumental in Arrow’s corporate and commercial success and its growth from a junior  explorer to a large integrated energy company. Mr Bizzell is a member of Bow’s Audit and Risk Management Committee.

Nick Mather, Non-Executive Director

Mr Mather has been a Non-Executive Director since the time of registration of the Company on 17 September 2004. He has over 27 years technical and corporate experience and is also the Managing Director of D’Aguilar Gold Ltd, a listed gold exploration company. Mr Mather has focused his attention on the identification of, and investment in, large resource exploration projects.

During his tenure as an Executive Director of Arrow Energy Ltd from 2000 to 2004, Mr Mather drove the acquisition and business development of Arrow’s large coal seam gas projects in south east Queensland.

Mr Mather was Managing Director of BeMaX Resources NL from 1997 until 2000 and was instrumental in the discovery of the world class Gingko mineral sand deposit in the Murray Basin in 1998.

Mr Mather is a member of the Audit and Risk Management Committee.

John De Stefani, Chief Executive Officer

Mr De Stefani was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Bow in April 2010 after serving as CEO Commercial. Prior to joining Bow in 2008, he spent eight years as General Manager/Director of an expanding power generator and CEO of a high tech business which delivered strong sustainable growth.

Mr De Stefani is a chartered accountant with 20 years of business experience. He has a proven successful track record in project finance, business development and asset management with over eight years international energy experience working on projects in the US, UK, Egypt, Turkey and the Philippines.

Mr De Stefani has a Bachelor of Business from the Queensland University of Technology and a MBA from the London Business School. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Victor Palanyk, Chief Operations Officer

Mr. Palanyk has more than 30 years experience in the resources industry including petroleum and mining in Australia, Asia, North America and the Middle East.  He has worked in most facets of the industry including exploration, development, production, business development, commercial and business analysis. 

Mr Palanyk also has 15 years experience in all facets of coal seam gas (CSG).  His past management positions include General Manager of Queensland Gas Company, Technical Manager for Anglocoal Australia’s CSG business and Manager for Rio Tinto’s CSG business.

Mr. Palanyk is responsible for managing Bow’s technical efforts to expand its gas reserves base and to implement its development plans to establish Bow as a major upstream energy company.

Mr Palanyk has a BSc Specialization Geology from the University of Alberta, Canada, he is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) and the Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia (PESA).

Peter Harbison, Chief Financial Officer

Mr Harbison is a chartered accountant with 20 years of business experience. He has a Bachelor of Commerce from University of Queensland and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia.

Peter was engaged by Arrow Energy in January 2009, developing the financial strategy to meet Arrow’s short to medium term capital funding requirements, from upstream coal seam gas field development through to downstream LNG facility. Prior to that, Mr Harbison was CFO for Broadcast Australia Pty Ltd and Arqiva Ltd, both part of the Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group, where he was involved in major corporate transactions and capital restructuring for large scale communications infrastructure projects across Australia and the UK.

Dusan Pribilovic, Engineering General Manager

Mr Pribilovic has over 12 years petroleum exploration and production operations experience working in both conventional oil and gas and coal seam gas. Mr Pribilovic started his oil and gas career with Tri-Star Petroleum Company in the Fairview and Durham CSG fields and for Origin Energy before commencing with Bow. His experience includes exploration and production well drilling, workover and completions, field and production facility operation, operations management and engineering support, and project engineering/management.

Mr Pribilovic is responsible for the implementation of Bow’s exploration and production campaigns encompassing drilling, testing, pilot production and development planning.

He graduated from Queensland University of Technology with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering in 1996 and is also a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Richard Fenton, General Manager Project Services

Mr Fenton started with the company in October 2010, and is responsible for the new Project Services Team.  Richard has 15 years of experience in upstream oil and gas projects, principally around the end-to-end delivery of CSG projects.  This has ranged from, Manager – Environment and Regulatory Compliance with RLMS, to Manager of CSG with Sinclair Knight Merz and more recently as Manager, Water Business Planning for QGC and QCLNG.

Key upstream petroleum experience includes the evaluation and implementation of desalination technology for CSG production, licensing approvals, landholder compensation, preparation of drilling programs and implementation, well site preparation, logistics for seismic and drilling, noise attenuation, site remediation and rehabilitation, and production.

As the GM Project Services, Richard is responsible for Bow’s environmental and sustainability activities; landholder, government and community liaison; and coal mine co-development agreements.

Richard holds a Bachelor of Science from Griffith University, with majors in Environmental Planning/ Policy and Economics/ Land and Water Processes.

Duncan Cornish, Company Secretary

Mr Cornish is an accomplished and highly efficient corporate administrator and manager. He has many years experience in pivotal management roles in capital raisings and stock exchange listings for numerous companies on the ASX, AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange.

He has also focused on the areas of company reporting and company regulatory, secretarial and governance areas, and business acquisition and disposal due diligence. He has worked previously with Ernst and Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers in both Australia and the UK.

Duncan is currently Company Secretary and CFO of other listed companies on the ASX and TSX-V having assisted in the listing and capital raising of each of the companies. He is supported by a small experienced team of accountants and administrators.

Mr. Cornish is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Australian Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Peter Gerdes, Human Resources Manager

Mr Gerdes has over 20 years’ experience in human resources, training and development in the aviation, minerals and resource industries.  Prior to joining Bow in March 2011, Peter managed his own consultancy business.

His expertise includes major business integration and industrial relations projects for companies including Rio Tinto Coal, Ansett Airlines, Peabody Coal and Consolidated Rutile Limited, as well as significant experience in recruitment, organisational and leadership development.

Mr Gerdes is responsible for the development and delivery of Bow’s human resources function.