David M. Wood is President and Chief Executive Officer of Murphy Oil Corporation.  Mr. Wood joined Murphy in 1994 and held several positions including Vice President and Senior Vice President of frontier exploration and production and President of Murphy Exploration & Production Company before becoming President and Chief Executive Officer on January 1, 2009.   Mr. Wood holds a bachelor's degree in geology from Nottingham University in England.  He attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University.  He serves as a Director for Murphy Oil Corporation and the American Petroleum Institute.  He is a Certified Petroleum Geologist and a member of the Society for Exploration Geophysicists.

Abdul Quader Shaikh is a senior international economist and Regional Coordinator for Africa, Middle East and South Asia at Trade Information Center (TIC), U.S. Commercial Service, U.S. Department of Commerce. He coordinates business counseling to promote trade, investment and commercial opportunities for U.S. companies, including joint ventures, and counsels American business engaged in exports to Africa, the Middle East and South Asian countries. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Massachusetts and holds two masters degrees and a law degree.

Chris Varvares is President of Macroeconomic Advisers, a company he co-founded with Joel Prakken and Laurence Meyer in 1982.Prior to joining MA he was on the staff of the President's Council of Economic Advisers (1981-1982). Mr. Varvares is President of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), a member and former President of the St. Louis Chapter of NABE, and is a member of the American Economic Association. He participates as a guest panelist for the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers, serves as a member of Time Magazine's Board of Economists, is a member of New York State's Economic Advisory Board, has been a panelist for the World Economic Forum and is widely quoted in the financial and business press and frequently appears on financial news programs.

Katherine A. Deck is Director of the Center for Business and Economic Research in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. Her research interests include local economic development, industry market structure, and education and health care economics. In providing applied economic research as part of the outreach mission of Walton College, Deck has managed studies for a wide variety of business, non-profit, and governmental organizations in the state of Arkansas. Deck also acts as a media resource for economic analysis of current events and trends. Deck earned a B.A. in economics from the College of William and Mary and a M.S. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before joining the Center for Business and Economic Research, Deck was the antitrust economist for the Arizona Attorney General.