Everything we know about Afren’s new chief executive Alan Linn

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Afren's investors have been pleased to hear its six-month search for a new chief executive has drawn to a close.

And it is Alan Linn of Australian-listed Roc Oil who will take the top job. This means Linn had beat another candidate to the post – Jon Ferrier of the Danish shipping giant Maersk.

Shares in the embattled oil producer had already spiked earlier this week after it pledged to reveal its future chief executive along with its full-year results "imminently".

Here's everything we already know about Linn, who is a chartered chemical engineer with over 30 years' experience working for international oil companies.

  1. Linn graduated from the University of Strathclyde with a degree in chemical and process engineering in 1980. He has since worked in a range of roles for international oil companies adding names such as Cairn and Exxon and Mobil to his curriculum vitae.
  2. He initially spent 16 years in "various downstream and upstream process and operational assignments" across Britain and the United States for Exxon and Mobil according to his Linkedin page. 
  3. From 1996 and 2000 Linn worked as a production and asset manager at British oil firm Lasmo, followed by a role as an operations general manager in Venezuela for the same company. Lasmo was acquired by Eni in 2001. Linn later joined Cairn Energy where he spent four years working as a country manager in India.
  4. In 2005 he joined FTSE-listed Tullow Oil as a business unit manager, before becoming operations director of AfricanArabian Petroleum a year later.
  5. Linn then joined Roc Oil as chief operating officer in 2008 before progressing to acting chief executive officer in October 2010, and then chief executive in February 2011.
  6. Linn takes over from senior independent director Toby Hayward who is currently presiding over the company. He'll certainly have a lot on his plate.

Afren's former chief executive Osman Shahenshah left the company, along with chief operating officer Shahid Ullah and two associate directors, after an investigation into the acceptance of unauthorised payments.

Since then, the company has also struggled amid crumbling global oil prices, which fell about 50 per cent last year, as well as a funding crisis.