Management Team

Steven Kobos is the President and Chief Executive Officer for Excelerate Energy. Steven was appointed in 2018 after serving in an integral capacity within the company as a board member and counsel for the previous 11 years. His first significant engagement with Excelerate came in 2007 when he spent three months in Kuwait negotiating what would become the region’s first LNG import terminal. He has since held a seat at the deal table in a multitude of international FSRU re-gas projects. Steven is proud to call Excelerate Energy his home and to lead a team that embodies the company’s core values of stewardship, accountability, improvement, and leadership.

For the past 27 years, Steven has focused on complex energy and infrastructure development projects, general maritime operations and, specifically, LNG shipping, FSRUs, chartering of vessels, shipbuilding contracts, operational agreements, and related project finance and tax matters. Steven is also an experienced international negotiator, specifically for EPC contracts for the construction of floating regasification import terminal infrastructure, chartering FSRUs for use as LNG importation terminals, and related services and equipment procurement.

Steven earned a Juris Doctorate, with the highest honors, in 1990 and a Bachelor of Arts in 1986, both from the University of Oklahoma.

Dana Armstrong is the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Excelerate Energy. In her career spanning 25 years, she has led both public and private multinational companies within the energy and biotechnology industries.

Most recently, Dana served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Scientific Drilling International, a leading energy services provider and manufacturer, providing oversight of all global financial reporting, financial planning and analysis, accounting, treasury, tax, financial systems, and internal controls.

Before joining Scientific Drilling, Dana was Vice President and Treasurer of ION Geophysical, a global provider of technology-driven geophysical solutions. Prior to that, Dana served in various senior financial leadership roles at Thermo Fisher Scientific, a world leader in serving science.

Dana holds a B.B.A. in Accounting and an M.B.A. in Finance, both from the University of Houston, and is a licensed C.P.A.

Daniel Bustos is Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer for Excelerate Energy, responsible for the commercial development of our LNG importation projects. Daniel formerly served as the Senior Vice President of Project Origination for Excelerate Energy.

Prior to joining Excelerate Energy, Daniel worked for Repsol YPF in various positions for both E&P and downstream business in Latin America, including leading Repsol’s oil and gas commercial activities in Bolivia, development of the propane business in Latin America, and managing strategic planning and development for the natural gas division in Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil. In 2007, Daniel was part of the Repsol team that developed Bahía Blanca GasPort, the world’s first floating regasification terminal.

Daniel earned a Nuclear Engineering Degree from Instituto Balseiro (Argentina) in 1997 and holds both a Nuclear Engineering Master’s Degree and an MBA in Corporate Finance.

David Liner  is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Excelerate Energy. With over 25 years of leadership and maritime experience in the oil and gas industry, he has a proven track record of project execution and a commitment to safe operations.

Most recently, David was with SeaRiver Maritime, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of ExxonMobil where he was responsible for commercial operations of up to 80 ocean-going vessels.

Prior to his tenure at SeaRiver, David served as the Chief Officer of Commercial & Planning at Qatar Gas Transport Company (Nakilat) where he led business development in the FSRU, LNG, and LPG sectors, and he served in leading roles in multi-billion-dollar development projects for ExxonMobil. David began his career in the regulatory arena with the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), working in the United States and South Korea on new construction, repair, and conversion projects, and subsequently worked as a consultant for engineering firms developing various marine and offshore projects in U.S. domestic and international markets.

David holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Ocean Engineering from the Florida Institute of Technology.

Alisa Newman Hood is Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Excelerate Energy. Alisa brings her impressive 20-year worldwide legal, government relations, and energy policy background to the role. Alisa joined Excelerate Energy in 2019 as Senior Vice President, negotiating financing agreements, EPC contracts, and vessel charters with international counterparties while managing the company’s U.S. government relations function in Washington, DC.

Before joining Excelerate Energy, Alisa served as General Counsel of ARTIC, a Qatari real estate holding company of 35+ luxury, internationally branded hotels. Previously, Alisa served as General Counsel of Akfel Commodities, parent company of the largest private importer of natural gas and largest trader of gas and power in Turkey, and as General Counsel of Aluminium Bahrain, where she guided the company through its IPO on the London Stock Exchange.

From 2012 to 2016, Alisa served as senior advisor to the US Special Envoy for International Energy Affairs at the State Department. She began her legal career in the project finance and energy practice at White & Case LLP in New York and Washington. She lends her expertise to media outlets and has published several op-eds and articles on energy-related topics, including The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Los Angeles Times, and China Daily. She was previously a Council on Foreign Relations term member.

Alisa holds a B.A. from Brown University and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where she has been on the adjunct faculty teaching oil and gas law since 2007.

Amy Thompson is Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Excelerate Energy. With over 22 years of progressive human resources experience in global oilfield services organizations, Amy has held various leadership roles in the U.S. and the Middle East.

Prior to joining Excelerate Energy, Amy was Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer of Apergy Corporation, a leading provider of highly engineered technologies that help companies drill for and produce oil and gas. In this role, she led the HR function in the start-up of Apergy as a new public company.

Before that, Amy held various HR roles within Baker Hughes, an international industrial service company and one of the world’s largest oil field services companies, and she served as a Human Resources Advisor for Oxy, a hydrocarbon exploration company.

Amy holds a B.S. in Human Resources Management from Louisiana State University and an M.B.A in Global Business from The University of Dallas.