Charif Souki

Founder of Cheniere Energy and Sabine Pass LNG

Charif Souki is the Chairman of Ajax Holdings, a family-owned private investment company founded in 2012. Historically, its focus has been on real estate and hospitality, however it recently created Phoenix Energy, an energy investment and development platform.

Previously, Charif founded Tellurian in February 2016, where he oversaw the planning, design, permitting and construction of the Driftwood LNG Facility, a 27.6 MTPA liquefaction plant in Louisiana. Tellurian was acquired by Woodside Energy in October of 2024 which has continued the construction of the Driftwood facility under the new name, Woodside Louisiana.

Prior to Tellurian, Charif founded Cheniere Energy in 1996 and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer and President until December 2015. Under his leadership, Cheniere created the first liquefaction facilities in the US and it remains the largest US exporter of natural gas to this day.

Before founding Cheniere, he had over 20 years of independent investment banking experience in the energy industry and specialized in financing for small capitalization companies with an emphasis on the oil and gas industry. 

Charif currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut, as a member of the Advisory Board of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, and on the International Advisory Board for the Neurological Research Institute (NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital. He received a BA from Colgate University and an MBA from Columbia University.