Ricardo Colménter is the CEO of ENTRA Consulting. Previously, he served as Western Hemisphere general counsel for Weatherford International. He also was a member of the Halliburton law department, a partner at Johnson & Cato, and legal director of the Venezuelan Patent and Trademark Office. He holds a JD degree from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, along with an LLM degree in international intellectual property from Lund University in Sweden, and an LLM degree in intellectual property and information law from the University of Houston Law Center. Mr. Colménter is an adjunct professor and affiliate scholar for international energy programs at the Center for U.S. and Mexican Law, and for the Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Center at the University of Houston Law Center. He participates as lead chairman and program director for advanced training courses for national oil companies' legal and business development departments (Pemex, Petrobras, Petroecuador and Ecopetrol) and for regulators (CNH, the Argentina Ministry of Energy and Mining, and the Secretaría de Hidrocarburos del Ecuador). In addition, he is the author of law books and law articles regarding international oil transactions, dispute resolutions, technology transfers in the oil industry, and the international oil and gas business. He also participates as a speaker at international seminars, symposiums and conferences, and as an expert at workshops organized for oil production countries by the U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the U.S. Department of Commerce. His practice centers on transactional law with a strong business view, which involves structuring multimillion-dollar energy integral services contracts, mergers and acquisitions in the oil industry, sophisticated oil and gas projects, and dispute resolutions. He has more than 20 years of international oil and gas business experience, and has developed an extensive international network and strong negotiation skills, based on his experience as the Venezuela representative before the Andean Community and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Mr. Colménter was included in an edition of The Legal 500 Latin America, which identifies an array of the most influential and innovative in-house counsel working in the region.