Appointed interim CEO in January 2025 and CEO in August 2025, Chris Jepps has extensive experience in the energy industry, GIS and entrepreneurship. In his time as Technical Director at Exprodat he established the company's technical strategy and led its software design and development. Following Exprodat's acquisition by Getech in 2016, Chris joined as Products Director, becoming Group COO in February 2018.

During his near 7 years as COO, Chris led the company's product strategy with the aim of growing software revenues from Getech's core and emerging markets. Some of his key achievements in this time include enhancing the Group’s oil and gas workflow products to meet the changing needs of the energy market, migrating Globe from its legacy delivery model to a modern cloud-based architecture that enabled the launch of a subscription model to support wider energy transition adoption, and introducing cloud-based subscription models for its global gravity and magnetic data holdings to better serve the needs of Getech's cross-sector customer-base.

Chris has a BSc in Geology from Imperial College, London, and is an alumnus of Esri's global Partner Advisory Council.

Chris, could you elaborate on your current role as CEO at Getech?

Day to day, I focus on two things: firstly, strengthening the financial foundations of the business, and secondly, ensuring we’re set up to grow revenues in the years ahead. That has meant making difficult but essential decisions to rebalance our cost base, while at the same time improving how we operate commercially by restructuring our sales team and prioritising the products and markets that can deliver the biggest impact.

I also devote significant time to our strategic direction – from core geoscience offerings like Globe and our GIS-for-energy software, to longer-term value creation projects in natural hydrogen and helium. Ultimately, my job is to make sure we deliver for our customers, rebuild value for shareholders and unlock the untapped potential I know this business has.

What does Getech do, and what sets it apart in the energy sector?

Getech helps organisations understand the subsurface so they can make better decisions about where to explore, and to better manage and develop those resources. Our heritage is in geophysics, and over the last three decades we’ve built one of the most comprehensive gravity and magnetic data libraries in the world. We combine that with our geoscience data and our flagship earth modelling platform ‘Globe’, as well as our geospatial software products and our expert services team in order to give customers a clear, data-driven view of opportunity and risk.

What sets us apart is our combination of deep technical expertise and truly unique datasets. Very few companies can offer the level of integrated geoscience modelling, spatial analytics and domain knowledge that we can. Whether a customer is looking for new petroleum opportunities, screening for critical minerals, assessing geothermal or natural hydrogen potential, or even designing offshore wind infrastructure, we can provide the insight that underpins confident investment.

We’re also commercially minded. Our role is not just to deliver science: it’s to help customers reduce exploration risk, lower development costs and make smarter decisions in fast-changing energy markets. That blend of geoscience, geospatial capability and business focus is what really differentiates Getech.

What are the business's aspirations for growth and development in the upcoming years?

Our priorities are clear: strengthen the core, grow our recurring revenues and scale into the parts of the energy sector where our capabilities give us a genuine competitive edge.

In the near term, we’re focused on delivering growth from our core offerings: our Globe platform – sometimes described as “Earth’s digital twin for resource exploration” – our gravity and magnetic data, and our GIS-for-energy software such as Unconventionals Analyst and Exploration Analyst. These products have long-standing demand from oil and gas, financial services, CCS, mining and government clients, and we’re improving the way we commercialise and support them through our expanded sales team.

Looking further ahead, we see significant strategic value in the emerging markets where Getech already has an advantage. Natural hydrogen and helium are good examples: our subsurface data and modelling capability place us at the forefront of this space, and our joint ventures are designed to convert that technical leadership into commercial outcomes. 

How does your company contribute to sustainability and the transition to cleaner energy?

Much of what we do helps customers identify and develop low-carbon resources more efficiently and with lower risk. Our geoscience and geospatial capabilities support a wide range of transition-focused activities: from geothermal screening and carbon-storage site assessment to natural hydrogen exploration and critical minerals targeting.

Geologic Hydrogen is a good example of where our capabilities make a real difference. At Getech, we bring together geophysical modelling, subsurface interpretation and spatial analytics to help customers identify and evaluate potential exploration sites. Our geophysical data can identify potential source rocks hidden deep below the surface, our fault-mapping workflows can quantify seal integrity and our Exploration Analyst software can assess the overlap of the key genetic factors to highlight potential hotspots. Together, these tools give operators a clearer view of the technical risks and opportunities, from regional screening through to more detailed site assessment.

More broadly, we’ve expanded our geoscience expertise – which has traditionally centred on oil and gas – into emerging low-carbon markets where the need for robust subsurface data and modelling is equally important. Whether it’s screening geothermal potential or exploring for precious critical minerals to support electrification, our role is to give customers the evidence they need to make responsible, well-informed investment decisions.

The natural hydrogen space is becoming increasingly crowded, with new explorers, start-ups and major energy companies entering the market. What sets Getech apart from other players in this emerging sector?

What differentiates us is the depth of subsurface science we bring to the problem. A lot of companies in the natural hydrogen space today are relying on surface detection — seeps, anomalies, historic mud-gas hits or basic mapping. That’s useful, but somewhat reactive: these probably only tell you where hydrogen is leaking now, not where it is being generated, how it moves through the subsurface or where it is likely to be stored.

Our approach is fundamentally different. We start with the deep geology. Using our gravity and magnetic data we can map the location of source rocks – the rock types capable of producing hydrogen through serpentinisation or radiolysis. Then we can assess the structures that control hydrogen migration: faults, basement highs, potential traps. This allows us to high-grade areas that would otherwise be considered data-poor. And – uniquely – we can do this globally.

We then combine that with the geological data in our Globe platform, which helps us identify the temperature windows, reservoirs, seals and migration pathways that make up a viable natural hydrogen play system. The result is a predictive, three-dimensional view of where hydrogen is likely to be generated, migrate and accumulate – long before anyone steps into the field.

The final piece is validation. We can integrate remote sensing, AI-driven detection tools and surface-level data to test our predictions. That combination of predictive modelling and detection techniques gives us a much more reliable way of screening opportunities, reduces false positives and improves the chance of finding commercially meaningful accumulations.

So, while many early-stage players are focused on what they can see at the surface, our strength lies in understanding the subsurface. That gives us a genuine technical edge, and it’s why we’re emerging as one of the leaders in this space.

What advice would you offer to individuals looking to join the energy industry?

The best advice I can give is to stay agile and open to change. The energy industry is evolving rapidly – technologically, commercially and politically – and the people who thrive are those who are willing to learn continuously and adapt to new ways of working.

A solid technical foundation is important, whether in geoscience, engineering, data science, machine learning or GIS. But the industry also increasingly needs people who can be creative – bridging disciplines and bringing together everything at their disposal to come up with a novel solution or new play concept.

When building your own team, what are the critical skills and qualities you prioritise in potential hires?

For me, it’s about being able to deliver – about being “a finisher”. And that starts with mindset. So, we look for people who are collaborative, but also creative and problem solvers, willing to take ownership. Technical skills are important, but the real value comes from individuals who can connect those skills to practical outcomes for customers. People who understand not just how to do the work to completion, but why it matters and how it fits into a broader decision-making process.

Can you share one of the biggest challenges you've faced in your career and how you navigated it?

Becoming Getech CEO is certainly up there. When I stepped into the role, I knew it would be tough given the economic backdrop and the challenges facing the upstream energy sectors. I also knew the business has real strengths: fantastic products, a loyal customer base, world-class data and some genuinely exciting new opportunities in areas such as natural hydrogen and helium exploration. 

But more important than those, I knew Getech has fantastic people. Leaders cannot make a company successful on their own – they have to bring the team with them. After all, it’s the team that does a lot of the ‘heavy lifting’. So, one of my focus areas this year has been to really improve the teamwork within all levels of the company, and I think we’re really starting to see some tangible results. 

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the energy industry in the next 10 years?

The biggest challenge will be managing the tension between energy security, affordability and decarbonisation. The world needs to reduce emissions quickly, but it also needs reliable and cost-effective energy to support economic growth. Balancing those priorities, while supply chains evolve, technologies mature and global politics remain uncertain, is incredibly complex.

For industry players, this means operating in an uncertain world where investment decisions must account for long-term climate commitments, short-term price volatility and rapidly changing regulation. Companies will need to be more data-driven than ever, integrating subsurface understanding with digital efficiency tools such as AI and machine learning, scenario modelling and geospatial insight to make the right calls.

From a subsurface perspective, we’ll also need to solve problems on multiple fronts at once: responsible oil and gas development, scaling geothermal, locating critical minerals, building carbon storage capacity and exploring emerging low carbon resources like natural hydrogen. Each of these requires robust science and a deep understanding of the earth.

The organisations that succeed will be the ones that embrace that complexity, make smart use of data and technology and stay adaptable in a world where the energy mix is evolving rapidly. And that’s exactly where companies like Getech can play a meaningful role.

About Getech

Getech applies world-leading geoscience data and advanced geospatial software to locate and evaluate the subsurface resources that are critical for energy security and a sustainable transition. The company has a long-established position in global natural resource markets, supporting a wide range of clients through a distinctive combination of data, software products and expert services.

Historically, Getech’s work has centred on hydrocarbon exploration and development, which has supported a long-term customer base and strong recurring revenues. The company’s strategy has broadened that foundation – leveraging existing customer relationships, products, skills and technologies – to capture new commercial opportunities across the low-carbon economy.

This approach is underpinned by close customer collaboration and disciplined capital allocation. Recent contract wins reflect this diversification, including projects in natural hydrogen exploration, geothermal screening and copper exploration.

Getech’s activities now span several key areas:

• Petroleum: locating and helping manage hydrocarbon resources through integrated subsurface intelligence
• Metals and Mining: identifying and ranking potential sites for new critical-mineral deposits
• Natural Hydrogen: screening and high-grading prospective areas using geophysics, predictive geological modelling and surface-detection validation
• Geothermal: screening and ranking geothermal prospects through geophysical interpretation, heat-flow analysis and structural mapping
• CCS: evaluating and high-grading potential CO₂ storage sites using subsurface modelling, fault analysis and volumetric assessments

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