Management

Amer Khayyat, Silixa’s Managing Director, brings over 20 years’ experience in the energy, industrial, and environmental sectors.

His mission is to drive the innovation, growth and profitability of Silixa by leveraging its unique capabilities in upstream energy, carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), environmental geotechnical monitoring and other emerging markets. He is passionate about creating a positive impact on the world with cutting-edge technology and data insights. 

Amer joined Silixa in 2019 as Vice President of Operations and Data services.

Yomi is the Chief Financial Officer, which incorporates all finance functions together with human resources and corporate administrative functions. He also holds the position of Company Secretary.

He is a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), with over 15 years’ experience in Accounting and Finance, and holds a first degree in Zoology.

Yomi has been responsible for delivering outstanding service to the business covering accounting, finance, budgeting, forecasting, implementing and driving corporate and financial strategies and policies.

Mahmoud co-founded Silixa in April 2007 to develop and commercialise the next generation of optical fibre sensors.

Mahmoud previously co-founded Sensornet in 1998 and as CEO grew the company from its two-man roots to a successful, internationally-operating company and a rapidly-growing turnover.

Mahmoud is the joint winner of two DTI SMART awards, the prestigious 2000 Manufacturing Metrology for World Class Manufacturing Award (Frontier Science and Measurement).

Fauzia leads on the management of Silixa’s intellectual property portfolio.  She also has responsibility for identifying development partners for distributed fibre optic sensing applications outside of Oil and Gas, for example in Transportation, Security and Civil Engineering.

Fauzia has over 10 years’ experience in the protection, development and commercialisation of academic research from King’s College, London and Cambridge University.

She worked primarily across the physical sciences and engineering.  Fauzia holds a Graduate Diploma in Law and a PhD in Liquid Crystal Chemistry.

Garth Naldrett has 25 years’ experience in the Oil and Gas industry with a variety of roles related to the measurement and optimisation of upstream assets. Garth is currently the Chief Product Officer at Silixa where he is responsible for development and deployment of permanently installed Distributed Fibre Optic monitoring systems.

Prior to joining Silixa Garth founded FloQuest, an upstream software modelling and interpretation business, which was acquired by Shell Technology Ventures to form part of Tendeka. Before founding FloQuest Garth held various positions within Schlumberger, including product champion for fibre optic and subsea monitoring.

Garth is one of the founding members of Seafom, where he is currently a committee member, as well as serving on the SPE DETS Integrated Digital Solutions sub-committee. He has authored several papers for the SPE, SEG, EAGE and IEEE and holds a number of patents on monitoring applications..

Michael joined Silixa as a Business Development Manager for industrial monitoring applications in 2011. Prior to joining the company, he worked a number of years in the field as a Senior Engineer and Project Manager in the oil & gas sector.

Michael holds a master’s degree in Communications & Radio Engineering from King’s College and a PhD in optical fibre instrumentation from Imperial College, University of London.

Michael is responsible for expanding upon Silixa’s position as a leading provider of distributed sensing technology into the environmental, alternative energy and industrial. He has been instrumental in introducing new measurement technology to the emerging CCUS market including plume, passive seismic and microseismic monitoring.

He has authored several international publications and is a widely acknowledged expert in applying DFOS to the challenges of the green energy sector.

Peter has 30 years of experience in both field operations and line management, having worked in a variety of roles, including operations vice president, reservoir characterization and interpretation services, strategic development unconventional resources, and production technology integration.

Prior to joining Silixa, Peter was Vice President of Schlumberger’s Technology Integration for Production Services.

As Vice President of Technology Integration for production he was responsible for a global integrated multi-discipline team including senior technical advisors and project managers focused on the integration of technologies, processes, and operational execution on multiple simultaneous projects focused on the full upstream workflow.  His experience spans many different locations, including the US, Middle East, and Europe.

Peter joined Silixa in April 2017 as General Manager of the Houston based, Silixa LLC. In his current role, Peter is responsible for daily operations and the delivery of services for Silixa’s distributed sensing services throughout North and South America.

Craig Milne joined Silixa in 2012 following a 15 year career in the Wireline division of Schlumberger Oilfield Services.

Within Schlumberger Craig held operational and management positions in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

He holds a degree in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde.

Zara is a highly experienced Geotechnical Engineer and Mining Executive with expertise in underground and open pit mining operations worldwide.

Prior to joining Silixa, she was responsible for heading the global mining business unit at ESG Solutions in Canada.

Zara resides in Kingston, Ontario in Canada and holds an MSc in Mining Engineering from Iran, a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from McGill University in Canada, and an MBA from Laurentian University in Canada.

Tom co-founded Silixa in 2007 and is Silixa’s Chief Technology Officer.

As CTO, Tom takes the lead with the development of Silixa’s iDAS and ULTIMA DTS range of instruments and oversees Silixa’s application-specific development projects.

Tom’s awards include the Metrology for World Class Manufacturing Award and British Telecom Technological Innovation Award for an extremely fine-resolution optical wavelength meter.

Jackson joined Silixa in 2011 and has over 15 years of experience in research, product development and manufacturing in the field of fibre optic instrumentation. As VP Engineering and Manufacturing, he manages the engineering of Silixa’s optical interrogator products and manufacturing capabilities.

He holds a PhD from City University London and has authored/co-authored multiple peer reviewed and conference publication. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering and a Master’s degree in fibre optic sensing from University of Manchester and Institute of Science & Technology (UMIST).

Thomas joined Silixa in 2014 and has been involved in activities ranging from field installations and surveys, data analyses, installation and component design, and business development. In his current role, he oversees Silixa’s Environmental and Infrastructure business in North America including the CCUS, Geothermal, Geotechnical, Industrial, and Defense sectors.

Thomas holds a B.S. in Geosciences from the University of Montana, an M.A.Sc. in Water Resources Engineering from the University of Guelph, and is currently working towards an M.B.A. from the University of Montana. Thomas has numerous publications related to fiber optic sensing applications and is co – principal investigator of Department of Energy funded research programs. For the past few years, special focus on CCUS applications has resulted in Silixa’s successful award of multiple commercial CCUS monitoring projects in North America and DFOS becoming a common monitoring tool for CCUS regulatory compliance.