Mandar Thakare

Mandar Thakare is the Associate Director of ICAM. He joined bp in Sep 2019, as the Materials Science Programme Manager, and in Nov 2021 was appointed as the Associate Director. He is responsible for ensuring that the bp-ICAM continues to deliver business value and maintains alignment with bp’s strategy for net zero transition. He has over fifteen years’ experience in materials engineering, innovation strategy, and new product development. Prior to joining bp, he worked as an Innovation Programme Lead at Element Six Ltd., where he supported a multi-site global team of scientists in developing and commercialising novel polycrystalline diamond products for oil and gas applications.

He holds a BEng in Mechanical Engineering (Mumbai, India), MSc in Surface Engineering (University of Nottingham), a PhD in Tribology (University of Southampton, Schlumberger plc funded) and an MBA (Alliance Manchester Business School). Prior to Element Six Ltd., he held a post-doctoral research position at the Osney Thermofluids Lab, University of Oxford, working closely with Rolls-Royce plc on gas turbine seals. During this period, he also tutored undergraduates in Engineering Science at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. After his PhD, he worked for Schlumberger plc, developing wear-corrosion resistant solutions for downhole directional drilling systems. During this period, he was responsible for identifying and qualifying coatings and materials solutions for Schlumberger tools deployed globally, through new suppliers and technologies. He has published journal papers, book chapters and conference papers on the subject of tribocorrosion and is a member of the IMechE Tribology Committee, as well as a reviewer for journals such as Wear, Tribology International, ASME Journal of Tribology. In 2020, he was also elected Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals, and Mining (IoM3) and is part of the IoM3 Energy Transition Group’s leadership team.