Issam Dairanieh last year became head of corporate venturing at UK-based oil major BP.

Between 2010 and 2011 he led BP’s US corporate venturing operations and he joined the venture team in 2007.

Dairanieh is a director or observer on the boards of 12 companies, namely Brightsource Energy, GMZ Energy, GMZ Solar, OptoAtmospherics, Liquid Light, Solidia Technologies, Caelux Solar, Skyoni, UpWind Services, Xtreme Power and Oxane.

He previously worked at Amoco’s new business development division. He gained a PhD in chemical engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.