Laurel Buckner, vice-president at BHP Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2026 Powerlist.
Laurel Buckner joined BHP Ventures in 2024 to lead BHP’s new business ventures function, including its corporate venture capital activities.
BHP is a global resources company, producing essential commodities including iron ore, copper, metallurgical coal and soon, potash. Through BHP Ventures, the company invests in emerging technologies and partnerships with the potential to support safer, more productive and more sustainable operations in the long term.
Under Buckner’s leadership, BHP Ventures is sharpening its focus on translating innovation into operational deployment, connecting portfolio companies directly with one of the world’s largest resources businesses.
Since joining BHP, Buckner has focused on building the ventures team and strengthening connections between portfolio companies and BHP’s operating businesses. The portfolio includes companies such as Fervo Energy (geothermal energy), FieldAI (physical AI), and SiTration (novel membrane filtration), reflecting investment activity across a range of technologies relevant to the mining value chain and their application at scale in complex operating environments.
Buckner most recently served as managing director at private equity firm Riverstone Holdings, where her investment focus included alternative fuels and hydrogen, critical minerals and their applications, direct air capture and innovative battery materials and solutions. Prior to Riverstone, her climate-focused investments extended across a diverse array of battery, solar and hydrogen applications.
Buckner’s investment approach is grounded in both operational and transactional experience. Over nearly a decade as an in-house lawyer in the technology sector, she played a key role in the sale of VC-backed Aventail to SonicWALL and subsequently the acquisition of SonicWALL by Dell.
Across her career as both a lawyer and investor, she has been involved in billions of dollars’ worth of transactions.
Buckner began her career as a corporate and tax lawyer at Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle. She holds an LLM in Taxation from the University of Washington, a J.D. from the University of Denver, and a BA in Comparative Literature from Colorado College.
Buckner has said the next phase of corporate venture capital will require closer alignment with business priorities and a practical focus on how emerging technologies can be applied at scale. In capital-intensive industries with long development timelines, accelerating the path from innovation to operational deployment remains a critical focus.
The GCV Powerlist represents the 100 individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry.
These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.
Here’s a snapshot of their recent deals:
