Ms. Nina Marie Hernandez, Iraya Energies
Summary
Has worked with various clients across four continents; Asia, Australia, Europe and South America with eighteen (18) years industry experience, focusing in oil and gas. Nina spearheads Iraya Energies as it develops innovative technologies within the oil and gas and energy sector, utilizing the latest developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence for application database management and big geoscience data analysis.
Nina has also held various technical, management and business development positions in reservoir subsurface consulting dealing both with high-level capacity and alliance building, and project-level management.
As Founder-Geoscientist, Nina has bootstrapped Iraya Energies, a fast-growing AI scale-up during an industry downturn in 2016. In her entrepreneurial journey in deep technology development, Nina has learned together with her young dynamic team- how to do more with less, how to say no, how to pivot, take risks, and grab opportunities in a downcycle.
Today, Nina’s focus is growing Iraya to be a global brand from and its core product, ElasticDocs, as a recognized leader in unstructured data analytics, to enable geoscientists to form deep insight about the earth’s subsurface for application in the oil and gas, and new energy transition. She is based in Asia.
Career Story Outline
My favorite career advise is from my mother. One day, already a young professional, I complained to her why she didn’t send me to singing lessons when I was a child. She said in her typical deadpan expression: “If you pursued to be a singer, you wouldn’t have become a scientist”. What she meant is: to be successful, you must focus on what you are good at.
As a woman founder in a traditionally male-dominated tech arena, she credits her upbringing for enabling her to follow her entrepreneurial dreams. I was lucky enough to grow up knowing that girls can be anything they want – a doctor, an astronaut, an engineer, I studied and worked in institutions that valued excellence, persistence, and hard work, and was not particularly conscious of the existence of glass ceiling until I was already a working professional.
I hope my career story in this EAGE MasterClass, will inspire fellow geoscientists to know their worth, pursue their dreams, and take action.
Industry Position
| Sep 2016 to present | Chief Executive Officer, Iraya EnergiesMalaysia |
| Dec 2012 to Jun 2016 | Asia & Australia Business Development Manager, Schlumberger Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia |
| Apr 2006 to Dec 2012 | Senior Rock Physicist, WesternGeco, Schlumberger Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Bracknell, UK |
| Jan 2004 to Apr 2006 | Rock Physicist, Technical Asssistant Odegaard A/S Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia & Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Jul 2002 to Aug 2003 | Software Engineer, Accenture |
| Summer 2001 | Operations Engineer Philippine Geothermal Inc Makati, Philippines |
Educational Background
| Jul 2008 | Executive Education INSEAD Business School Fontainebleau, France |
| Sep 2003 to Aug 2005 | MS Petroleum Engineering Technical University of Denmark Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Jun 1997 to Apr 2002 | Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering University of the Philippines, Diliman Quezon City, Philippines |
Interests and Hobbies
Writing, beaches, and reading science books with her 5-year old son.