Dr. Kase L. Lawal is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CAMAC International Corporation, a global energy corporation with interests in oil and gas exploration and production, engineering services and crude oil and refined products trading for markets in Africa, Europe, South America and North America. He is also the Chairman of Allied Energy Corporation and the Vice Chairman of the Unity National Bank Board of Directors, the only licensed and federally insured African-American owned bank in Texas. He is a major shareholder in the bank. Most recently, Dr. Lawal was appointed as Chairman of the Board for CAMAC Energy, Inc. (a U. S.-based, energy company, publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange Amex).

CAMAC has been featured on Forbes list of the 400 largest privately-owned corporations in the United States. CAMAC has consistently ranked #2 in the BE100’s – The Nation’s Largest Black Businesses by Black Enterprise and named Houston’s eleventh largest privately owned company in 2009 by the Houston Chronicle. CAMAC has affiliate offices located in Bogotá, Colombia; London, England; Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria; Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa. The corporate headquarters is located in Houston, Texas. CAMAC’s annual revenues in 2009 were $1.4 billion.

Committed to community service, Dr. Lawal provides key leadership on several boards and commissions, including as a Commissioner on the Port of Houston Authority Board, where he served as the first-ever Vice Chairman of the largest Seaport in foreign tonnage in the United States with over $115 billion dollars in cargo value. He is also the Vice Chairman of the Houston Airport System Development Corporation (HASDC), the fourth largest airport system in the United States, a member of the Board of Directors for the Port of Houston Authority International Corporation and the Greater Houston Partnership Board of Directors. In addition, Dr. Lawal serves as a member of the National Urban League Board of Directors, a member of the Board of Trustees for Fisk University, a director with the Cullen Engineering Research Foundation. He also co-chaired the Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS, a $300 million dollar UNICEF campaign with his wife Eileen Lawal.

For many years, Lawal has been very active in developing international trade relations. Most recently, on September 15, 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Lawal to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN). Previously, Dr. Lawal served as a member of the United States Presidential Trade Advisory Committee on Africa during the Bush and Clinton Administrations. He has also participated in several trade missions to Africa and served on the Board of Directors of the Corporate Council on Africa.

Dr. Lawal funded a one million dollar endowment, the largest single contribution for an alumnus of Texas Southern University, to establish the Lawal Center for Global Trade in the Jesse H. Jones School of Business. In 1992, he established a petroleum engineering endowment at the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering for petroleum engineering students.

He is a graduate of Texas Southern University with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and Prairie View A&M University with a master’s degree in business administration, finance and marketing. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in Philosophy from Fort Valley State University and a Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa from Texas Southern University.