Laurel Buckner

Laurel is the Vice President of BHP Ventures where she invests in game-changing emerging companies, technologies, and management teams to help drive growth and decarbonization efforts for BHP. Laurel has over 25 years of experience as a successful multi-stage climate and technology investor and executive with extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions. She most recently served as Managing Director at Riverstone Holdings where her investment focus included alternative fuels and hydrogen, critical minerals and their applications, direct air capture and innovative battery materials and solutions. Prior to Riverstone, Laurel’s climate-focused investments extended to a diverse array of battery, solar and hydrogen applications.

Her investment strategy is rooted in her extensive experience as an executive and her earlier career as a lawyer, both in the technology industry. Over nearly a decade, as the key in-house lawyer, she successfully sold VC-backed Aventail to publicly traded SonicWALL and then, as General Counsel, facilitated the acquisition of SonicWALL by Dell. In her career as both a lawyer and investor, she has been involved in billions of dollars’ worth of transactions. She began her career as a corporate and tax lawyer at the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle. Laurel holds an LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Washington, a J.D. from the University of Denver and a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Colorado College.