First Reserve promotes CFO

Connecticut-based First Reserve Corporation has promoted its chief financial officer, Jennifer Zarrilli, to managing director.
Zarilli’s promotion brings the number of managing directors at the energy-focused firm to 12. “Jenny Zarrilli has been an integral part of the First Reserve team for 10 years,” said chief executive Bill Macauley in a statement.
Jenny joined the firm in 1998 after spending six years at private equity firm Quadrant Management where she was a financial executive.
She was brought into First Reserve shortly after the firm had closed Fund VIII on $812 million to help “take the firm to the next level in terms of accounting,” Zarrilli said.
Over the last 10 years, Zarrilli has built the back office accounting team from “two or three” to 10 people. She also notes growth among the other back office groups including marketing, legal and IT. In her new role, she will focus more on “integrating the back office into the office in general.”
The firm previously promoted Tim Day, Joe Bob Edwards and Hardy Murchison to managing director in June 2007.
These promotions are the latest in a period of expansion for First Reserve dating back to January of last year when the firm promoted six professionals to vice president.
At the time, the firm also named Anne Gold chief administrative officer in addition to her role as general counsel, and promoted Kristen Custar to director of investor relations, though subsequently she left the firm to join New York-based The Jordan Company as chief administrative officer and head of IR. Since then, Caitlyn MacDonald has joined First Reserve as director of marketing and communications.
Prior to First Reserve, MacDonald was investment manager at SVG Advisers, the fund of funds advisor, where she was responsible for industry research and fund manager analysis and selection.
First Reserve is among the largest private equity firms in the world investing solely in the energy industry, with offices in London and Houston as well as its headquarters in Greenwich, CT. Its most recent fund, First Reserve Fund XI, closed on nearly $8 billion in 2006, triple the size of its previous offering. The firm is now raising its 12th fund, targeting $12 billion.