Mr. Beard is currently a Senior Partner at Apollo Global Management, LLC (“Apollo”). Mr. Beard joined the firm in June 2010 as the Global Head of Natural Resources, based in the New York office. Mr. Beard joined Apollo with 19 years of investment experience, the last ten of which were with Riverstone Holdings where he was a founding member, Managing Director and lead deal partner in many of the firm’s top oil and natural gas and energy service investments. While at Riverstone, Mr. Beard was involved in all aspects of the investment process including sourcing, structuring, monitoring and exiting transactions. Mr. Beard began his career as a Financial Analyst at Goldman Sachs, where he played an active role in that firm’s energy-sector principal investment activities. Mr. Beard has served on the board of directors of many oil and natural gas companies including Apex Energy, EP Energy, Belden & Blake Corporation, Canera Resources, Cobalt International Energy, Eagle Energy, Legend Natural Gas I—IV, Mariner Energy, Phoenix Exploration, Titan Operating, Talos Energy, Pinnacle Agriculture Holdings, LLC, NRI Management Group, LLC and Vantage Energy. Mr. Beard has also served on the board of directors of various oilfield services companies, including CDM Max, CDM Resource Management and International Logging. Mr. Beard received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana. Based upon Mr. Beard’s extensive investment and management experience, particularly in the energy sector, his strong financial background and his service on the boards of multiple oil and natural gas exploration and production companies and oilfield services companies, which have provided him with a deep working knowledge of our operating environment, we believe that he possesses the requisite skills to serve as a member of our Board of Directors.