Born in the United States in 1956, James Phillips is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and San Diego State University where he obtained BS and MS degrees, respectively, both in Geology.

From 1985 until 1992, Mr. Phillips worked for Shell Oil Company assigned to their North Alaska Frontier Exploration Group in Houston and later with Shell Offshore's Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Exploration Group in New Orleans. Mr. Phillips opted to join Occidental Petroleum in 1992 where he served until coming to Lundin Petroleum. While at Oxy, he gained extensive international experience as the lead exploration geologist responsible for securing new acreage primarily in Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Pakistan. This assignment was followed by a posting as Chief Geologist in Islamabad, Pakistan. After a short return to Oxy's head office in California, assigned as Project Lead for North Africa-Eastern Europe New Ventures, Mr. Phillips was posted to Muscat, Oman as Regional Exploration Manager. Mr. Phillips returned to Oxy's home office in 2001 to take the position of New Ventures Exploration Manager for Africa. In 2003, he was assigned the same position for Oxy's exploration efforts in Latin America.

Mr. Phillips joined Lundin Petroleum in 2005 as Exploration and New Ventures Manager and was made Vice President Exploration Africa and Middle East in 2008.