Pierre Lever, Chief Executive Officer, Argus Asia 

Pierre heads the Argus Asia business and is based in Singapore. He is responsible for all strategic, commercial and market activity across Singapore, Dubai, Beijing, Tokyo and Sydney. 

Pierre joined Argus in 2011 after his role as Managing Director for Planet Retail Ltd, a global information provider for the retail and consumer goods industry. At Planet Retail he led revenue and profit growth and expanded the reach of the business into new markets. 

He was a founding director of Fizzback Ltd., a venture capital backed consumer insights business, that was subsequently acquired by NICE Systems. Prior to this Pierre was Sales Director and General Manager for the southern European operations of Forrester Research Inc., a NASDAQ listed technology analyst firm. 

Pierre holds law degrees and an MBA from IMD Business school in Lausanne, Switzerland. 

Jim Nicholson, Vice President, Argus Asia

Jim Nicholson is responsible for Argus’ editorial content and business development across Asia-Pacific. Prior to his move in July 2011 to the regional headquarters in Singapore, Jim was Head of Business Development for generation fuels in London.

His career began as a magazine journalist with Reed Business Publishing, and Jim has spent most of his career in publishing and energy market price discovery. He joined Argus in March 2004.

Jim holds an MA from Oxford University in modern languages. 

Feisal Sham, Vice President, Sales and Marketing

Feisal Sham has over 20 years of experience in global intelligence services and regional advertising businesses, having held key commercial management positions in the hospitality and retail advertising, media communications, petrochemicals and energy industries.

Feisal leads Argus’ sales and marketing teams in Singapore, Tokyo and Beijing. His primary responsibilities include vendor partnerships, business development, training, key account management and developing and driving revenue-generation licensing models.

Feisal has worked at AP Publications, SAFAN, HB Publishing and ICIS. He has been with Argus since 2000 and has expanded the company’s Asia-Pacific commercial business to include research, event management and new reporting services.

Anu Agarwal, Business Development Manager

Anu Agarwal is Business Development Manager based in Singapore. She works closely with the petroleum product industry across Asia and the Mideast Gulf to develop the role of Argus in meeting the dynamic requirements of this huge market.

Anu has spent 10 years working for global petrochemical companies in strategy and business development as well as sales and marketing roles across Asia. She also spent six years reporting and analysing pricing trends in the chemical, refined products and biofuel markets as well as examining the underlying factors that influence global trade in these markets.

Anu shares a keen interest in new product development with a track record of developing pricing services for new and emerging markets.

Gao Hua, Head of China Office

Gao Hua runs the Argus Beijing representative office and joined Argus in October 2004.

Gao Hua started her career in energy by working at a PetroChina oil field in 1999.  After a year, she left the oilfields to become a products reporter in ICIS C1Energy.  She was quickly promoted to team leader.

In her role at Argus, Gao Hua set up Beijing representative office and currently manages and builds key client relationships, seeks new business opportunities and develops the Beijing office’s commercial strategy.

Barbara Kalu, Middle East Manager

Barbara Kalu joined Argus in 2001 to oversee sales and marketing operations outside of the Americas as the company’s Commercial Manager, Europe, CIS, Africa, Middle East and Asia.

Barbara previously worked at Platts, where she managed the company's key accounts. She started out at DRI/McGraw-Hill (now known as Global Insight) as an economic consultant following a first degree from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and an MSc in economics from the London School of Economics in 1987.

Barbara set up and now heads the Argus Middle East office in Dubai.

Masaki Mita, Head of Japan Office

Masaki Mita runs the Argus Japan office. He develops business strategy and advises Japanese market participants of the benefits of using independent price assessments.

Masaki joined Argus in 2002 to open up the Japan office in Tokyo. He previously worked as an energy market reporter at other international and local energy price reporting agencies, where he built his experience and knowledge in a variety of markets in Asia-Pacific.