Forty Under 40: Cameron Brown, Pontem Energy Capital

Cameron Brown, co-founder and managing partner of Pontem Energy Capital Management LLC, is today’s featured Forty Under 40 honoree.

Brown started Pontem with the goal of capturing opportunity and building the team into one of the leading firms in the alternative investment space.

Reflecting on the road to Pontem, he said, “The business was just an idea in my head at the end of 2019, and now it has 15 professionals, more work than we can handle, and is well positioned to capitalize on the continuation of a volatile investment landscape.”

Brown studied engineering at MIT and was a captain on the school’s baseball team. He joined Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Marine and Arctic Upstream Development team as a materials engineer, where he developed his passion for upstream oil and gas.

After Exxon Mobil, he transitioned to the financial side of the business, working in investment banking at Lazard, before shifting to principle investing at EnCap Investments LP and Citadel, putting him on the path to founding Pontem.

Houston-based Pontem is neither a portfolio company or a conventional private-equity firm, which Brown said are the buckets that people want to lump the firm into.

“We are an opportunistic, alternative capital provider that intentionally has one of the most capable technical teams in the space,” he said. “We can invest passively, operate assets, invest across the capital structure and make big, chunky bets. There’s not many, if any, groups out there with that level of flexibility, so it made it that much harder to get off the ground.”

Click here for Cameron Brown’s complete profile.

Take a look at all of the Forty Under 40 honorees.

Oil and Gas Investor is accepting nominations for the 2021 Forty Under 40 in Energy awards. Click here to NOMINATE those that are MOVING THE INDUSTRY FORWARD.