Oleg Mikhailov began his career at Chevron and spent 13 years serving in increasingly senior roles throughout South Asia and the Gulf of Mexico. From there, Oleg moved to TNK-BP, a partnership between the United Kingdom-based energy giant BP and the Russia-based AAR Consortium, where he rose to vice president of operations and asset management for upstream activities. After that, he became vice president of operations at Bashneft, one of Russia's largest producers of oil and gas. Prior to Xplorobot, he worked as a managing director and partner for AlixPartners and Boston Consulting Group, where he led energy-related projects in the UK, Mexico, and Argentina, as well as throughout North America.

Oleg holds a Ph.D. in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree in physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.