Carissa Essed has worked for 16 years in the oil and gas industry in 3 countries in various functions. With a BSc in chemical engineering, she started as a process engineer at Chicago Bridge and Iron Company in Houston, Dallas and the Netherlands. During the EPC phase of the Staatsolie refinery, she moved fulltime to Staatsolie to work at the refinery.  Afterwards she assisted with the set-up of a business economics department at the refinery and after acquiring an MBA in 2017 became a project consultant and managed several ICT, process development, and local content projects and most recently expanded her portfolio in sustainable energy projects.

Since March 2021 she is part of the Local Content Development Taskforce, catalyzing projects to develop local content.