Entrepreneur Of The Year 2011
The Road to Palm Springs
 |  | Brian F. Maxted and W. Greg Dunlevy |
Starting from a business plan jotted down over coffee at Starbucks, Brian Maxted and Greg Dunlevy, the founders of Kosmos Energy Ltd., built an independent exploration and production powerhouse that has carved out an impressive niche as an industry leader in drilling and developing frontier or unproven areas.
To get the business off the ground, they spent their first six months prospecting for capital before finally convincing private investors to pony up more than $300 million, which was later referred to by Forbes as one of the best private equity deals ever.
Using unconventional tactics and taking calculated risks, Kosmos discovered and developed Ghana’s Jubilee Field, a deep-water oil field located off the West African nation’s coast. This significant new oil field holds an estimated 1 billion barrels of recoverable oil and is expected to bring $50 to $150 billion in economic activity to Ghana.
The Kosmos team brought the Jubilee Field online in 42 months, almost half the time usually required by larger companies to go from discovery to development. The oil field, which originally produced 65,000 to 70,000 barrels of oil per day, yielded almost 120,000 by June 2011.
The company went public earlier this year, and as of May 30, 2011, Kosmos had market capitalization of $7.2 billion.