Carlos Reyes

Background

Spaniard Carlos Reyes, 33, grew up in Barcelona, completing a BA in economics at Universidad de Barcelona (UB) in 1994. During his tenure at UB, he completed semesters abroad in Oxford, UK and in Hokusei Gakuen University, Japan.

Carlos then went to George Mason University in Virginia, USA on a research fellowship, and gained his Masters in international public policy in 1996. The proximity of Virginia to Washington, DC, meant he was well placed to take up a position at the World Bank and he started there as a consultant, involved with policy and regional finance. In 1997 he moved to work for a Spanish energy multinational group where he was a business development manager, travelling extensively to develop and bid for large-scale projects in emerging markets.

Joining BP

In 2000 Carlos returned to the World Bank as a senior evaluation analyst before moving on in 2002 to start his MBA at Yale. In the summer of 2003 he became a Global MBA intern with BP. He joined the company as a Helios fellow in August 2004.

BP roles

As a summer intern, I worked in global power in the gas, power and renewables segment, based in London. My role involved examining the potential market for integrated power and seawater desalination in the Mediterranean region, a potential market size of $2.5B. Key elements of the study were determining the gas volumes required to fuel this potential market and the opportunities for monetizing existing BP gas equities.

I produced research supporting the acquisition of a power asset in East Asia, which involved researching specific financial information related to the owners of the asset acquired, and interacting with senior management within the unit. The deal was named 2004 ‘Power deal of the year’ by Project Finance International magazine.

My first rotation as a Helios fellow was in the Algerian business unit as a commercial analyst. In this role, I was responsible for the commercial aspects associated with the In Amenas project, a major gas project and one of the largest joint ventures in the country. My day-to-day responsibilities ranged from negotiations with other project stakeholders to dealing with engineering requests from BP’s central planning team.

As In Amenas is not yet online, we were also drawing up contracts with our partners to detail how we were going to ship the gas and hydrocarbons to the different markets. The best part of the job was being involved in the implementation of a project – the hands-on approach.

I am currently in the middle of my second rotation, in the energy finance services team (EFS). EFS is responsible for creating a new business within BP to develop an integrated financial structuring service for the energy sector.

I am part of the team originating and developing the capital structures to finance the different projects. This role allows me to use the entire breadth of skills obtained during the MBA, from the analytics to the strategy and negotiating elements. Furthermore, it provides me with a great insight into how BP goes about creating a new business.