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Board Changes & Leadership Transition

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Richard Bennett steps down as CEO; Chris Jepps appointed Interim CEO with Max Brouwers proposed for Board.

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Getech, a world-leading locator of subsurface resources, announces that Richard Bennett has decided to step down as Chief Executive Officer ("CEO"), effective 22 January 2025. Richard joined the Company as Non-Executive Chairman in January 2021, was appointed Interim Executive Chairman in February 2023 and then appointed CEO in February 2024. He led the Company's evolution to becoming a leading locator of natural resources for the Energy Transition and has now chosen to hand-over the CEO role and focus on his business interests in renewable energy.

Chris Jepps, the Chief Operating Officer of Getech since February 2018, has been appointed Interim CEO for an initial term of six months and will be supported by Max Brouwers, Chief Business Development Officer, who it is proposed will be appointed to the Board as an executive director. The proposed appointment of Mr Brouwers to the board of Getech remains subject to approval from the Company's nominated adviser and completion of the customary due diligence to satisfy itself as to board composition and the suitability of the proposed director for the purpose of the AIM Rules for Nominated Advisers, and a further announcement will be made in due course.

Michael Covington, Chair of Getech, said:

"On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Richard for his visionary leadership and dedication. Richard has played important roles during his tenures in turn as Chair, Executive Chair and CEO. Under his leadership, Getech has made considerable progress in the diversification of the business beyond the Group's core oil and gas sector clients. Our portfolio of work increasingly supports exploration for sub-surface resources essential for the Energy Transition such as natural (or white) hydrogen, critical minerals and geothermal energy. We wish him continued success in the future.

The Board and executive leadership remain committed to executing Getech's strategic priorities. We will continue to deliver value-add for our customers - many of whom have worked with us for over a decade. We are now seeing renewed activity and interest in core markets such as oil & gas and critical minerals as security of supply is increasingly in focus due to heightened geopolitical uncertainty.

In parallel we offer new and innovative project workflows that produce valuable and novel insight to emerging sectors. For example, in the geothermal industry our expertise and data can prove essential for locating and modelling zones of sub-surface heat flow, while in the nascent natural hydrogen sector our geophysical data allows us to easily fingerprint potential hydrogen source rocks for further exploration."

Richard Bennett added:

"It has been a great privilege to lead Getech and work alongside such a talented and dedicated team. I am proud of what we have accomplished together particularly the headway we have made into new markets such as critical minerals, geothermal and natural hydrogen. In Chris and Max the business has two excellent operators who I am confident will lead the Company successfully into the future."

About Chris Jepps

Chris has extensive energy industry, GIS and entrepreneurial experience. In his time as Technical Director at Exprodat he established the company's product strategy and led its software design and development programme. Following Exprodat's acquisition by Getech Group plc in 2016, Chris joined as Products Director, becoming Getech's COO in February 2018.

During his near 7 years as COO, Chris led the Company's product strategy with the aim of growing software revenues from Getech's core and emerging markets. Some of his key achievements in this time include enhancing its oil and gas workflow products to meet the changing needs of the energy market, migrating Globe from its legacy delivery model to a modern cloud-based architecture that enabled the launch of a subscription model to support wider energy transition adoption, and introducing cloud-based subscription models for its global gravity and magnetic data holdings to better serve the needs of Getech's mining customer-base.

Chris has a BSc in Geology from Imperial College, London, and is an alumnus of Esri's global Partner Advisory Council.

About Max Brouwers

Max is a senior energy executive with more than 25 years' experience in oil and gas and the energy transition. He started his career at Shell in 1996 and his last role there was Vice President Exploration for Europe, Russia and Caspian.

During his near 26 years with Shell he directed exploration & energy transition activities in more than 17 countries and delivered multi billion commercial deals. He also spearheaded the open-source industry standard cloud platform OSDU and a digital innovation start-up. He has a track record of forging partnerships with governments, national oil companies, boards and across directorates. He is the Chair of the AAPG Energy Transition Forum, member of the UK Subsurface Taskforce and has an MBA and an MSc in Geology.

Max joined Getech in October 2021 as Chief Business Development Officer, and has focused on natural hydrogen, critical minerals and geothermal as well as bringing considerable experience and networks in oil & gas.

For further information, please visit www.getech.com.

Cleaned text: letterheads, contacts and legal notices removed. View the original announcement ↗ · Company filings. Not investment advice.

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