Like many Indian-born American immigrants, Raj Mistry’s parents had always dreamed of him becoming “Dr. Mistry.” However, he ended up going in a different direction.

Growing up in Texas, Mistry became well acquainted with the oil and gas business.

After graduating with honors from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in business and finance, he joined Citi’s energy group as an investment banking analyst where he was involved in more than $3 billion of upstream capital raises, IPOs and M&A deals.

Mistry quickly became captivated with entrepreneurship and the wildcatters of the E&P world. He was poached from investment banking to join shale pioneer Aubrey K. McClendon’s American Energy Partners in Oklahoma City. There, he was involved in more than $3 billion of upstream capital raises, investments and A&D in the Permian Basin, Utica Shale, Australia, Argentina’s Vaca Muerta Shale and Mexico. He rose within the company and ultimately became a director of finance, working under McClendon.

In the summer of 2016, at age 24, Mistry co-founded Lynx Resource Partners LLC, a land-focused E&P platform that acquires and develops oil and gas resources across the U.S. Lynx’s first project involved assets in the Scoop/Stack/Merge play of the Anadarko Basin, which were successfully assembled and divested to several operators.

Now in its second iteration, the Oklahoma City-based company is backed by private equity capital with plans to operate more than 15,000 net acres in the Stack and Sohot plays of the Anadarko Basin in Oklahoma.

Mistry enjoys spending time and traveling with his long-time girlfriend and rescue Dachshund. He is an avid NBA fan and proud supporter of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Investor How did you get into the oil and gas industry?

Mistry Growing up in Houston, the energy capital of the world, you can’t avoid the presence and the impact of the industry. Virtually everyone is effected whether directly or indirectly.

My first summer internship in college was at Halliburton. It was also during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. At that time, you could get a very big, eye-opening sense of the ups and the downs of the industry.

Investor Any takeaways from your time at American Energy Partners?

Mistry The velocity at which work, deals and decisions occurred at that organization required you to have great discipline, and I learned how to separate the important from the unimportant to identify the variables that really matter.

Investor How did Lynx Resource Partners form?

Mistry When we started in the summer of 2016, there was a frothy A&D market. Lots of public and private capital and highly qualified management teams chasing very few deals. It was a great time to be a seller. We knew we would have to pursue a different strategy if we wanted to succeed.

My partners Nelson L. Bolen, Matthew J. Hatami and I came together to lease assets ‘off the ground’ in the Scoop/Stack/Merge plays, which were taking off at that time.

Investor What made you go the entrepreneurial route?

Mistry The first time I was exposed to the E&P business during my time in investment banking, I was always enamored with the overwhelming entrepreneurial spirt of the management teams. I always knew one day I would have to take that leap.

Investor What makes Lynx different from other E&Ps?

Mistry We have historically pursued a strategy of assembling and leasing positions “off the ground” vs. acquiring capital first. It requires us to have great discipline in scoping opportunities and identifying overlooked and undervalued assets.

Investor What is Lynx’s strategy going forward?

Mistry This is a very dynamic sector, and no one knows what the world is going to look like in the next year. Because of this, you must constantly be flexible and creative about strategies to create value. You have to be open to new points of view and challenge your current thoughts.

Presently, we’re gearing up to drill in the coming months.

Investor Who were your mentors?

Mistry I had the great fortune of working for arguably the greatest wildcatter and shale pioneer in the last century, Aubrey K. McClendon. Without him taking an interest in my career at an early stage, there is no way I’d be pursuing the entrepreneurial efforts I am today. He has been by far the greatest single influence. His best piece of advice was to be relentlessly curious.

Investor Any advice for the younger generation who want to be in your position one day?

Mistry Aim higher, remain humble and stay eager to learn. This industry, and the leaders who control it, reward the ambitious and curious.

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