World-Class Management Team

Keith Larson serves as General Counsel. Prior to joining Venture Global LNG, Keith was a partner at Hogan Lovells, a global law firm, heading its infrastructure, energy, resources and projects practice for the Americas. His previous experience also includes serving as Senior Legal Counsel for Royal Dutch Shell plc at its headquarters in The Hague. Keith has over twenty years of experience advising major energy companies on LNG matters and strategic transactions in the oil and gas sector. He has been frequently recognized as a leading lawyer by Chambers Global, The Legal 500, IFLR and Law360. Keith received his B.A. from Lafayette College and his J.D. with honors from Syracuse University.

Tom Earl is the Chief Commercial Officer of VG LNG Marketing, LLC. Tom previously served as Vice President at the international oil company Total, focusing on the development of its global LNG business.

After graduating from City University in London with a degree in Engineering, Tom joined Total’s newly formed gas marketing and trading team in 1998. After various responsibilities within the trading division of the newly combined Total, Elf and Petrofina operations, he managed the natural gas option desk and gas trading desk. Tom successfully led significant commercial negotiations on long-term gas and LNG contracts in countries such as Russia, Norway and Qatar.

In 2006, Tom was appointed Head of Electricity Trading at Total where he led a significant expansion into newly opened power markets across Europe. In 2011, Tom moved to Houston, where he was appointed as head of Total’s North America commodity trading business, including its LNG, gas, power, coal, petcoke and LPG operations. Tom also represented Total in its US LNG liquefaction transactions from 2012 to 2015.

In 2015, Tom was appointed Vice President of Development for Total’s global LNG activities. Tom led Total’s most recent and highly regarded global expansion into new LNG markets. This work has included innovative new LNG terminal projects and new downstream asset transactions across the world.

Jack Thayer serves as the company’s Chief Financial Officer. Jack has over twenty-five years of finance, strategy and mergers & acquisition leadership experience including serving as Chief Financial Officer at two Fortune 500 energy companies. Prior to joining Venture Global, he served as Chief Financial Officer of Exelon Corporation, a leading utility, power marketing and generation holding company, and Chief Financial Officer of Constellation Energy Group, Inc., a large, integrated energy company, with power generation, gas and electric distribution utilities and energy marketing and risk management services. He has also held roles in investment banking, first with SBC Warburg Dillon Read, and subsequently with Deutsche Bank Securities. Most recently, Jack served as Vice Chairman, Corporate Operations and Chief Financial Officer of Woodward, Inc. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Cum Laude from Middlebury College and holds a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University.

Brian Cothran serves as the company’s Chief Operating Officer.  Brian has over two decades of operational and strategic experience in the Oil & Gas and Power Generation industries.  Prior to joining Venture Global, Brian served more than 20 years with General Electric and Baker Hughes, after its merger with GE Oil & Gas.  During that time, he held a number of executive and general management roles both in the United States and abroad, which included leading GE’s Energy Services business in Eastern Europe and Russia, Vice President of Global Sales for Baker Hughes and President of GE Oil & Gas North America.  Most recently, Brian served as Chief Executive Officer of The Flexitallic Group, a global market leader in the manufacture and supply of static sealing solutions.

Sarah Blake serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer.  Ms. Blake was most recently the Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer at AES Corporation, a leading multi-national energy company.  Since November 2017, Ms. Blake managed the global Controllership organization of AES, a team of approximately 350.  In her more than 13 years at AES, Ms. Blake previously served as Vice President – Internal Audit and Advisory Services and Managing Director – Technical Accounting, as well as holding various roles in Financial Reporting.  Prior to joining AES, Ms. Blake held roles in Financial Reporting and Analysis with Gannett Co. Inc. and in Public Accounting with PwC.  Ms. Blake has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Virginia and is a Certified Public Accountant. 

Mark Dodge serves as the company’s Senior Vice President – Project Director. Mark has over 16 years’ experience in EPC construction and industrial manufacturing, predominantly with Zachry Group. Mark has an extensive background in planning, scheduling, and executing large scale EPC projects from concept through completion, including combined cycle gas power plants and large-scale process and LNG projects.

Most recently, Mark served as an EPC Project Executive for the Freeport LNG project. Mark has also served in the US Army Honor Guard conducting and leading-high profile missions throughout our nation’s capital. Mark earned a BS in Ag Business from Texas A&M University while playing football for the Aggies.

Ngoni Murandu serves as Venture Global’s Chief Information Officer. Ngoni has over 20 years of experience leading and directing information technology, most of which has been focused in the energy industry. Ngoni began his career at PWC before moving onto the information technology practice at IBM.  Prior positions he has held include: Vice President and CIO at Southwest Gas, Vice President and CIO at NW Natural Gas; and Senior Vice President and CIO at NDC. Ngoni also served as the President of Oregon InfraGard and CyberSmart NV, non-profit organizations focused on cybersecurity, and on the American Gas Association Cybersecurity Taskforce.

In his role at Venture Global, Ngoni is focused on stewarding the Company’s technology roadmap in addition to overseeing the acquisition and development of information technology systems to support plant maintenance and corporate business solutions.

Ngoni graduated with a Master of Arts degree in Technology Education from West Virginia University.

Fory Musser serves as the company’s Senior Vice President of Development. He has more than 15 years of experience in a variety of financial, strategic planning and business development roles.

Before joining Venture Global LNG, Inc. in September 2014, Fory was the Vice President, Corporate Development for Tervita Corporation, a privately held, leading provider of environmental services to the oil and gas industry in North America. Fory served at Tervita for 4 years and his primary responsibilities included strategic planning, executing corporate acquisitions and divestitures and special projects. Before joining Tervita, Fory served as the Vice President, Strategy for Covanta Energy, one of the world’s largest owners and operators of energy-from-waste facilities and other renewable energy infrastructure.

Fory’s primary responsibilities at Covanta included strategic planning, executing corporate acquisitions, and developing new lines of business that complemented existing operations. Fory was with Covanta for 3 years. Fory also worked at The AES Corporation, a global independent power company, for 5 years in a variety of roles, principally focused on project financing, business development, and subsidiary debt restructuring. Before AES, Fory was a banker in the private placement group at Deutsche Bank Alex Brown for 3 years.

Tom serves as the company’s Senior Vice President of Engineering. Tom has 33 years experience in the development, construction, and operations of power plants in over 30 countries.

He has demonstrated success in turn-around and asset optimization situations as an executive with the AES Corporation, where he was responsible for performance improvement of over 120 plants worldwide. Tom also set up and managed construction management teams for $7 billion of capital projects in the Middle East. He is also an engineer and former plant manager with Southern Company. He earned a MBA from University of Notre Dame (2000) and a BSE in mechanical engineering from University of Alabama at Birmingham (1982). Tom is a registered P.E. in the state of Alabama.

Michael Perkins serves as the company’s Senior Vice President – Project Director for Plaquemines LNG.  Michael has over 25 years’ experience in EPC industrial engineering and construction, predominantly with the Zachry Group.  Michael has significant experience in project execution, planning, controls, procurement, engineering and commissioning of large complex EPC projects throughout the United States including combined cycle gas power plants, chemicals and energy projects and LNG projects.  

Most recently, Michael was the Vice President of EPC Execution for Zachry’s Construction Group overseeing execution of a portfolio of EPC projects.  Michael has a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Jim Strohman serves as the company’s Senior Vice President – Project Director for Calcasieu Pass. Jim has over 25 years’ experience in the energy and transportation industries and recently directed and delivered Dominion Energy’s Cove Point 5.25 mtpa liquefaction project, on time and budget, with a OSHA recordable incident rate of less than 0.45. To date, Cove Point is the largest construction project for Dominion Energy and also the State of Maryland, with a budget exceeding $4 billion and the involvement of over 10,000 craft workers and 20 million total work hours.

Jim has held leadership positions in engineering, utility operations, gas infrastructure project teams and LNG vessel operations. As a retired Commander of the US Navy Reserve, Jim held leadership positions in ship and security operations, shipyard operations and directed major command business process inspections.

Jim earned a BS in engineering from the United States Merchant Marine Academy and a MBA from the College of William & Mary.

Leah Woodward serves as the company’s Treasurer and Managing Director – Investor Relations and focuses particularly on the company’s capital markets activities.  Leah has over 16 years of experience across the capital structure and has worked with Venture Global’s founders since 2014 to raise more than $32 billion of outside capital for the business. She was part of the team that led the company’s inaugural project financing for Calcasieu Pass LNG, which was the largest project financing in the world in 2019, and recently led another record-breaking $13.2 billion project financing for Plaquemines LNG.

Prior to joining the company in 2017, Leah was a Managing Director and Head of Institutional Sales at Height Capital Markets, a Washington, D.C.-based broker-dealer and investment bank, and in that capacity worked on Venture Global LNG’s first five capital raises.  Previously, Leah was an institutional salesperson in the Interest Rate Group at BNP Paribas, one of the world’s largest banks.  Leah holds a B.A. in Economics with Honors from the University of Virginia and earned her Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter in 2010.