About Us
Leadership
Alexander Tekie
CEO
Alex is Founder and CEO of Nakfa Energy, an independent Oil & Gas company focused on the exploration and development of Eritrea’s hydrocarbon potential. Nakfa is a pioneering E&P company committed to unlocking the immense untapped reserves potential of Eritrea.
Alex has over thirty years’ experience in international business development. In his various capacities, he has structured transactions worth over $1.3 billion. His strength is the knowledge, trust, and confidence that his partners put on him thus, marshalling relations to the advantage of all parties.
He is also the Founder & CEO of Alevation Group, LLC, a diversified Holding & Investment Company and Strategic Advisory firm focused on Eritrea. Prior to forming Alevation Group LLC in 2018, Alex was founder and Managing Partner at Crossbow Group Holdings, LLC, a US based diversified infrastructure, energy and industry business development consulting practice that identified, developed, and promoted strategic projects and investment initiatives in the Middle East and Africa.
Prior to Crossbow Group, Alex was co-founder and Managing Partner of Planet Blue Exploration & Production, Inc., an independent oil & gas company focused on South America and Middle East.
Early in his career, Alex was responsible for institutional investment management in the financial services industry, most recently with Morgan Stanley. In that position, he managed assets for emerging markets institutional clients with direct responsibility in establishing relationships with central banks, public pension systems and national banks in emerging markets. Alex started his career with Wheat First Butcher Singer, a Mid-Atlantic investment bank, where he was an Institutional Financial Advisor.
In 2002, Alex established U.S.-Eritrea Business Council and served as its Executive Director. The Council seek to improve the knowledge and understanding of the State of Eritrea within the U.S. business community, and vice versa, and promote trade and investment between the two countries, with the goal of promoting the private sector and economic development in Eritrea.
Alex holds a B.S. in Finance from the Robert H. Smith School of Business – University of Maryland; Certificate in Petroleum Economics from PetroSkills; and Diploma in Carbon Credit Markets from Point Carbon.
William “Bill” Bosworth
Chief Geologist
Bill is a consulting geoscientist with over forty years of experience in the oil and gas industry, with a primary interest in the countries surrounding the Red Sea. He is Nakfa Energy’s Chief Geoscientist, overseeing geotechnical aspects of all the company’s acquisition and exploration activities.
Bill’s career has focused principally on the international arena. He has participated in commercially successful green field discoveries and both small- and large-scale development projects in Tunisia, Syria, Libya, and Egypt. Bill is committed to bringing the best and most up-to-date technical expertise possible to any exploration program he is involved in, without losing sight of the importance of efficiency and financial objectives.
Bill was introduced to the oil industry as an intern with Chevron in Denver, Colorado, during his graduate studies. After graduation, he taught at Colgate University in Upstate New York for four years, and then joined Marathon International Oil Company in Houston in 1984. His career with Marathon spanned 21 years, with moves to the research center in Denver, the operations office in Cairo, the business development office in London, and finally back to Houston. In addition to participating in and later leading teams that explored and drilled wells in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, Bill was also assigned on several occasions to New Ventures and Business Development groups that evaluated new opportunities in more than 20 different countries, including all of those surrounding the Red Sea. Bill did stints as Exploration Manager in Egypt and later with the Libya re-entry team.
After leaving Marathon in 2005, Bill joined the exploration staff of Apache Egypt in Cairo where he worked primarily on exploration programs in the Western Desert and Gulf of Suez. His teams identified and drilled over 100 wildcat and delineation well locations, with a success rate of over 50%. This resulted in more than 20 commercially successful new field discoveries, which enabled Apache to expand its production and pipeline infrastructure nearly to the border with Libya. Bill retired from Apache in early 2025.
Bill received B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Albany. Although focused on oil and gas exploration for most of his career, he has also maintained an interest in geoscientific advancements and has authored over 200 peer reviewed publications, many on the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Gulf of Aqaba. Bill is a Senior Research Fellow in affiliation with the Jackson School of Geosciences, Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin where his research focuses on the geologic evolution of the Red Sea.
Salah H. Wahbi
Senior Advisor
Salah has more than 40 years of international experience and deep knowledge in the field of oil and gas. Since 2017, he is the Founder of Wahbi Consultancy, focusing on oil & gas opportunities.
Salah served as Chairman of the Board and the Chief Executive Officer of Ritaj Energy company from 2012-2017. During this time, he was also technical advisor to the Sudan Ministry of Oil.
Previously Salah served as President of Sudan National Petroleum Corporation (SUDAPET) from 2008 to 2012. He was responsible for business development, mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning, corporate policy and compliance, government and public affairs, and procurement.
From 2004-2008, Salah was President of Advanced Petroleum Company (APCO) in Sudan. APCO is a JV operating company with five national and international shareholding partners. He was responsible in all drilling, appraisal, development and production operations.
From 2000 to 2003, Salah served as the Vice President of Operation at Petrodar Operating Company (PDOC). PDOC is a multinational consortium of oil exploration and production companies operating in Sudan comprising of China National Petroleum (CNPC), Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS), China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (SINOPEC), SUDAPET, and Tri-Ocean Energy of Kuwait. He managed and supervised all drilling and exploration operations in the block (5 drilling Rigs & 3 Seismic Crew).
Salah was also Manager of Petroleum Engineering & Exploration at Gulf Petroleum Limited in Sudan from 1996 up to 2000.
Prior to that, he was the Head of Petroleum Engineering Department for General Petroleum Corporation of Sudan for 6 years from 1990 until 1996.
Salah earned his bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering in 1979 from Suez Canal University in Egypt. He began his career in 1980 when he joined Chevron Oil Company as Drilling, Production and Reservoir Engineer. He obtained a scholarship from the company and earned a master’s degree in petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering.
