Neal R. Goins is Director of International Government Relations for Exxon Mobil Corporation. He was raised in Latin America, and received his undergraduate degree in Physics from Princeton University in 1973 and a Ph.D. in Geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1978.

Dr. Goins joined Mobil Corporation in 1978 and held a variety of research, operations, corporate planning, and managerial positions with assignments in Dallas, Houston, Princeton, Bakersfield, and Fairfax. From 1994 to 1998, he was Mobil’s New Business Manager in Lagos, Nigeria. On repatriating to the US, he was appointed Principal Geoscientist for Mobil Corporation, with global responsibility for operations project quality and staff development.

Following the merger between Exxon and Mobil, Dr. Goins assumed the position of Area Manager for Nigeria with responsibility for all Exploration business and geoscience technology in Nigeria. Most recently, he was President of ExxonMobil Ventures in Mexico City.

Dr. Goins served as President of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico, and is a member of the US Department of State Advisory Committee on Economic Policy, the US Chamber of Commerce International Policy Committee, and a Trustee of Meridian International Center. Previously, he was a member of the Boards of the Consejo Ejecutivo de Empresas Globales (CEOs of top multinational companies in Mexico), the Woodrow Wilson Center Mexico Institute, the American School, and the American British Cowdray Hospital. He has published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers on geoscience, holds several patents, has served on multiple industry and academic advisory committees, has led fundraising efforts for various organizations, and was 1st Vice President of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.