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Executive Officers

Christopher G. Stavros – President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Christopher G. Stavros has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer and as a director since September 2022. Prior to his appointment to those roles, Mr. Stavros was Magnolia’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since July 2018. Prior to joining Magnolia, Mr. Stavros served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, whose principal businesses consist of oil and gas, chemical, and midstream and marketing segments (“Occidental”). Mr. Stavros joined Occidental in 2005 and was named Chief Financial Officer in 2014, having previously served as Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer. Mr. Stavros retired from Occidental in May 2017. Prior to joining Occidental, Mr. Stavros was a Senior Analyst at UBS with coverage of the Oil and Gas sector. Mr. Stavros received his BSBA from Boston University and received his MBA from the University of Rochester.

Timothy D. Yang - Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Land

Timothy D. Yang joined Magnolia Oil & Gas Corporation as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary in September 2018, and his position was expanded to include authority over Land in February 2022. Prior to joining Magnolia, Mr. Yang served as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Newfield Exploration Company ("Newfield") from July 2015 through September 2018. Prior to Newfield, Mr. Yang served as Senior Vice President, Land & Legal, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Secretary of Sabine Oil & Gas Corporation from December 2014 to July 2015 and as its Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Secretary from February 2013 to December 2014. His legal experience also covers both public and private companies within the energy and investment industries including Invesco Ltd./AIM Investments, Pogo Producing Company, and Eagle Rock Energy Partners, L.P.

 

Mr. Yang holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Trinity University, obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Houston Law Center and is a member of the Texas and Kansas state bar associations.

Brian M. Corales – Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Brian M. Corales is Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Magnolia Oil & Gas Corporation. Prior to his appointment as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in November 2022, Mr. Corales served as Magnolia’s Vice President, Investor Relations since November 2018. Mr. Corales is a certified public accountant, and, prior to joining Magnolia in November 2018, he was a senior analyst at Johnson Rice & Co. and previously spent 15 years in positions at other investment banks, including as a director at Scotia Howard Weil from October 2009 to February 2018, where he covered E&P companies with a range of market caps located in various basins throughout the United States. Mr. Corales began his career in 2001 in the Assurance practice at Ernst & Young focusing on energy companies.

 

Mr. Corales holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and accounting from the College of the Holy Cross.

Directors

Arcilia C. Acosta - Director (Independent)

Arcilia C. Acosta is the Chief Executive Officer of CARCON Industries & Construction, a full-service construction firm, and she is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Southwestern Testing Laboratories (STL Engineers), a geotechnical engineering and construction materials testing firm, both of which are based in Dallas, Texas.  In February 2020, Ms. Acosta was elected to the board of directors of Vistra Corporation, a retail electricity and power generation company located in 18 states across the United States and the District of Columbia.  She has also served on the board of directors of Veritex Holdings, Inc. since January 2021.  Ms. Acosta’s prior corporate board service includes ten years on the board of directors of Energy Future Holdings Corporation, six years on the board of directors of Legacy Texas Financial Group, N.A., and two years on the board of directors of ONE Gas, Inc.

 

In November 2022, Governor Greg Abbott appointed Ms. Acosta as one of three co-chairs of the 2023 Texas Inaugural Committee.  In April 2021, Governor Abbott appointed Ms. Acosta to the Texas Tech University Board of Regents for a six-year term.  Additionally, in March 2016, Governor Abbott appointed Ms. Acosta to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, where she served a three-year term, and, in March 2020, Governor Abbott appointed her to the Strike Force to Open Texas for COVID-19.  Ms. Acosta is one of 40 members from across the state appointed to this Special Advisory Council to Governor Abbott.  Ms. Acosta’s civic board service also includes the Communities Foundation of Texas and the Dallas Citizens Council, where she was recently named chairman for a three-year term from 2023 until 2026, making her only the second woman to hold that position in the 84-year history of the organization. She is also a member of the National Women Energy Directors Network.  Ms. Acosta received a Bachelor of Arts from Texas Tech University and completed the Harvard University Business School Corporate Governance Program.  In September 2021, she was awarded the Excellence in Business Award from Texas Tech University Rawls School of Business honoring distinguished alumni. 

Edward P. Djerejian - Director (Independent)

Edward P. Djerejian served in the U.S. Foreign Service for eight presidents, from John F. Kennedy in 1962 to William J. Clinton in 1994. Prior to his nomination by President Clinton as U.S. ambassador to Israel, in which position he served from 1993 to 1994, he was assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in both the George H.W. Bush and the Clinton administrations from 1991 to 1993. He was the U.S. ambassador to the Syrian Arab Republic from 1988 to 1991. He also served as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and deputy press secretary for foreign affairs in the White House from 1985 to 1986.

 

After his retirement from government service in 1994, he became founding director of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, a premier nonpartisan public policy think tank, which he led for 28 years until June 2022. He was appointed a senior fellow at the Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in June 2022.  He has been awarded the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award, and numerous other honors, including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the Anti-Defamation League’s Moral Statesman Award. He is also a recipient of the Association of Rice Alumni’s Gold Medal and is a life member of the Baker Institute’s Board of Advisors. In 2011, Ambassador Djerejian was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York since 2011, where he has served as Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Audit Committee. Ambassador Djerejian previously served as a director of Occidental from 1996 to 2015, serving as Chairman of the Board from 2013 to 2015, and as a director of Baker Hughes Incorporated and Global Industries, Ltd., where he was Chairman of the Governance Committee. He has served on the board of directors of The Mexico Fund, Inc. since 2013. He holds a Bachelor of Science and a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from Georgetown University, as well as a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from Middlebury College.

David Khani – Director (Independent)

David Khani served as Chief Financial Officer of EQT Corporation, a leading independent U.S. natural gas producer with an asset base in the core of the Appalachian Basin (“EQT Corp.”), from January 2020 until July 2023. Prior to joining EQT Corp., Mr. Khani served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of CONSOL Energy, an energy company whose businesses during his tenure included natural gas, exploration and production, and coal mining (“CONSOL”), from March 2013 to December 2019, and as Vice President, Finance at CONSOL from September 2011 to March 2013. During his time at CONSOL, Mr. Khani also held chief financial officer and board member roles at CONSOL affiliates, including at CNX Midstream Partners LLC (formerly, CONE Midstream LLC), a joint venture with Noble Energy. Mr. Khani spent the first 18 years of his career at various investment banking and capital market firms, including FBR & Co., Prudential Financial, Inc., and Lehman Brothers, Inc.  Mr. Khani holds a B.A. in biological sciences from State University of New York—Binghamton and an M.B.A. in corporate accounting and finance from the University of Rochester. He has been a chartered financial analyst (CFA) for 25 years. 

James R. Larson - Director (Independent)

James R. Larson has served as an independent director of CSI Compressco GP LLC, and its predecessor CSI Compressco GP Inc., general partner of CSI Compressco L.P., a provider of compression services and equipment for natural gas and oil production, gathering, transportation, processing, and storage, and as Chairman of its Audit Committee since July 2011 and served as a member of its Conflicts Committee from April 2012 until January 2021 and as Chairman of its Conflicts Committee since August 2021. From September 2005 until his retirement on January 1, 2006, Mr. Larson served as senior vice president of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, an independent exploration and production company (“Anadarko”). From December 2003 to September 2005, Mr. Larson served as Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Anadarko. From 2002 to 2003, Mr. Larson served as Senior Vice President, Finance of Anadarko, where he oversaw treasury, investor relations, internal audits, and acquisitions and divestitures. From 1995 to 2002, Mr. Larson served as Vice President and Controller of Anadarko, where he was responsible for accounting, financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting, and tax. Prior to that, he held various tax and financial positions within Anadarko after joining the company in 1981.

 

Mr. Larson is a current member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Financial Executives International, and the Tax Executives Institute. Mr. Larson also served on the board of directors of EV Management, LLC, the general partner of EV Energy GP, L.P., which is the former general partner of EV Energy Partners, L.P., from September 2006 until June 2018. He received his Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Iowa.

Shandell M. Szabo – Director (Independent)

Shandell M. Szabo has served as an independent director of Talos Energy, Inc., an energy company focused on offshore oil and gas exploration and production (“Talos”), since February 2023, where she serves on the Compensation and Safety, Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Committees and co-chairs the Technical Committee. Beginning in February 2020, Ms. Szabo served on the board of directors of EnVen Energy Corporation, which was a private operator of deepwater platforms in the Gulf of Mexico that was acquired by Talos in February 2023, and she served as Chair of the Risk Committee and a member of the Governance Committee until the acquisition. Prior to that, Ms. Szabo served nearly 20 years with Anadarko, until its acquisition by Occidental in August 2019, in various roles of steadily increasing responsibility throughout Anadarko’s U.S. onshore portfolio and deepwater Gulf of Mexico, including Vice President of U.S. Exploration from 2018 to 2019, Vice President of Onshore Exploration from 2016 to 2018, Director of Investor Relations from 2015 to 2016, General Manager of Development, Eaglebine/Base Assets from 2013 to 2015, Geoscience Development Manager, East Texas/North Louisiana from 2011 to 2013, and Regional Geology Manager, Gulf of Mexico Exploration from 2008 to 2010. She began her career at Exxon Mobil Corporation in 1998 in various subsurface and geoscience positions in basins in the U.S. onshore and Gulf of Mexico. Ms. Szabo serves on the Montgomery County executive leadership team for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and also as the Chair of its Student Visionary of the Year Campaign. She is an Advisory Council member of the United Way of Greater Houston. Ms. Szabo received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan and her Master of Science from Texas Christian University, both in Environmental Science with a concentration in Geology. She is a licensed professional geologist in the State of Texas.

Dan F. Smith - Chairman (Independent)

Dan F. Smith is a retired Chief Executive Officer of Lyondell Chemical Company, which operated in the chemicals, polymers, and fuels business segments (“Lyondell”), and its wholly owned subsidiaries Millennium Chemicals Inc. and Equistar Chemicals, LP., a position he held from December 1996 until his retirement in December 2007. From June 2007 to December 2007, Mr. Smith was also Chairman of Lyondell. Mr. Smith began his career as an engineer with Atlantic Richfield Company in 1968. He was elected President of Lyondell in August 1994 and Chief Executive Officer in December 1996.

 

Mr. Smith has served as a director and Chairman of the Board of Orion Engineered Carbons, S.A. since 2014.  During the past five years, Mr. Smith served on the boards of directors of Kraton Corp., where he was Chairman of the Board from 2008 until the company was sold in 2022, Nexeo Solutions, Inc., Northern Tier Energy GP LLC, and the general partner of Valerus Compression Services, L.P. (doing business as Axip Energy Services, L.P.). He also serves as a member of the College of Engineering Advisory Council at Lamar University. Mr. Smith is a graduate of Lamar University with a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering.