Pierce Kirby has built a distinguished international career spanning the energy, infrastructure, and financial sectors, cross-border investment, and strategic geopolitical advisory relating to impacts on the sector .

He began his career at Alex Brown & Sons before moving to Texaco, where he led business development efforts in Ukraine, with a focus on the gas exploration and pipeline sectors. He later served as Financial Director in Russia, playing a pivotal role in consolidating significant gas assets to form Novatek, now the second-largest gas company in Russia.

Pierce’s deep industry insights supported the CERA “Marching to Markets” study, in which he evaluated gas markets across the EU and former Warsaw Pact nations—work that laid the groundwork for German investment in Russian upstream assets and the development of the Nord Stream pipeline system. He also served as CFO of Tembeyneftegas, supporting the development of Yamal LNG, a project underpinned by 56 TCF of reserves.
Following a shift in Russia’s energy policy, he relocated to Austria and became Executive Director and Global Head of Energy at Raiffeisen Bank. There, he oversaw investments in both Eastern and Western Europe and helped guide EU capital into the burgeoning US unconventional energy sector. Particular focus on funding horizontal drilling developments and lease package acquisition. He lead an industry wide comparative evaluation that included large lease packages in different new basin plays, on behalf of non-US large institutional energy capital sources. During his tenure, he led numerous cross-border financings of gas infrastructure, involving debt, private equity, and structured finance.

Pierce is currently active in global energy and multi-jurisdictional vertically integrated global gas sector, in including new LNG development in the US. Other specific gas projects he developed were in the DJ Basin (USA), Israel, Australia, Timor-Leste, and Turkmenistan. In 2016, he advised the U.S. Department of Defence on the strategic implications of Russian state-sponsored acquisitions, evaluating the interconnectivity of Eastern European energy firms with Russian interests.

He holds an MA from the University of Glasgow, with a dissertation focused on the comparative international politics of oil-based economies, and is honourably discharged from the United States Air Force.