Francisco Leon and the education of a border crosser

Francisco Leon’s education came with a border. His family lived in Tijuana; school was in San Diego. On mornings when the line of cars threatened to defeat the timetable, he and his younger brother would get out, cross on foot, take the red trolley and walk the rest of the way. Geography had given them an unusually elaborate route to the classroom.

Leon was born in Mexico City. His parents moved the family north because they wanted their children to have opportunities in the United States. He remembers their life in the capital as happy and comfortable. The move involved giving up something real. Looking back, he connects their willingness to accept uncertainty with his own willingness to enter unfamiliar situations.

He kept crossing between the two countries from sixth grade through college, a stretch he puts at about twelve years. It gave him a daily comparison between places that were close enough to share a commute and different enough to change how he understood opportunity. “Being uncomfortable is what leads to growth,” he says.

The boy’s commute eventually ended. The habit of looking at a problem from both sides has remained useful. As president and chief executive of California Resources Corporation, Leon now works in a state trying to change its energy system while continuing to depend on the one it has. There are easier places to practice the art of the trade-off.

“Being uncomfortable is what leads to growth.”

Francisco Leon, on his parents’ decision to move north

Learning what a company is worth

His formal education also crossed the border. Leon earned a binational bachelor’s degree in international business through San Diego State University and CETYS Universidad in Mexico, then an MBA at the University of Texas at Austin. International business, in his case, had already been a practical subject before it became an academic one.

He began his career at the energy investment bank Petrie Parkman in 2001. His early work was as a financial analyst. Before running an oil producer, he learned to examine the businesses around it: what assets were worth, which transactions made sense and how a financial argument survived examination. The route to the oilfield began at the desk.

At Occidental Petroleum, his responsibilities extended across finance, planning and business development. He worked on initiatives in North and South America and the Middle East, and held roles involving acquisitions and the assessment of California resources. This was preparation in the mechanics of an energy company as a portfolio: a collection of properties, obligations and choices competing for capital.

When CRC separated from Occidental in 2014, Leon joined as vice president of portfolio management and strategic planning. By 2018, he was vice president of corporate development, overseeing acquisitions and divestitures. The recurring subject was allocation. Which assets deserved more money? Which belonged with another owner? Those questions would grow larger as his job did.

The CFO inherits a bigger conversation

Leon became CRC’s executive vice president and chief financial officer in August 2020. He served in that position until April 2023, when he became president, CEO and a director. The progression placed an executive trained in finance in charge of the company’s wider argument about its place in California.

A CFO has to make a set of numbers intelligible. A CEO in this industry also has to explain why the activity behind those numbers should continue. Leon’s public work now includes conversations with policymakers, community organizations and audiences who may know the price of gasoline much better than the business that helps supply it.

His stated position is that California can pursue lower emissions while continuing to produce energy locally. He argues that local production supports employment, tax revenue and energy security. These are the claims of an executive whose business depends on production continuing, and they describe the case he has chosen to make.

By January 2026, his carbon-management argument was specific about the conditions required. Projects needed early engagement with communities and regulators, and policy that made investment workable. He described large carbon hubs as collaborations among industry, research institutions and several levels of government. A promising reservoir, in that account, was only the beginning of a very long conversation.

Buying more of the map

Leon’s transaction background became conspicuous in July 2024, when CRC completed its all-stock combination with Aera Energy. Aera’s former owners received 21.3 million CRC shares, valued at approximately $1.134 billion at the referenced closing price. The existing CRC executive team continued to run the combined company from Long Beach.

At the closing, CRC expected $150 million in annual synergies within fifteen months. That expectation offered a useful test of the deal’s industrial logic. Buying assets could make the company larger immediately; integrating them had to make the combined operation work better. Leon thanked employees from both companies for completing the transaction, acknowledging the labor beneath the announcement.

Another combination followed on December 18, 2025, with Berry Corporation. Berry’s former shareholders received approximately 5.6 million CRC shares, worth about $253 million at the previous day’s closing price. The additions included San Joaquin Basin assets and operations in Utah’s Uinta Basin. CRC again retained its management team and Long Beach headquarters.

The useful sequel arrived in the operating results. For 2025, CRC reported $235 million in Aera merger-related synergies and average net production of 138,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day. In its August 2026 results, it reported $103 million in annualized Berry savings, exceeding that year’s target six months ahead of schedule. Those figures concern the company and its teams; they also show the measures against which Leon’s acquisition strategy can be judged.

A second use for the ground

Carbon storage adds a different question to the familiar oil-business calculation. A depleted reservoir can become a place to put captured carbon dioxide. Through Carbon TerraVault, CRC is trying to turn its knowledge of underground formations into another business. The rocks are familiar. Their proposed service has changed.

The distinction between a plan and an operating project became concrete in the second quarter of 2026. Carbon TerraVault I achieved its first CO₂ injection and revenue, taking emissions from CRC’s Elk Hills Cryogenic Gas Plant. In August, the subsidiary reported $1 million in quarterly operating revenue. A small line in the accounts marked a substantial change in the project’s status.

The scale deserves perspective. That same carbon-management segment reported $2 million in general and administrative expenses, $7 million in other operating expenses, net, and $3 million in capital investments for the quarter. First revenue establishes that a service has begun. Building a durable business from it remains a separate assignment.

Leon had been explaining the prerequisites well before injection began. In an interview published around RBC’s January 2024 energy-transition seminar, he discussed community engagement, the timing of injection, transportation and policy. The sequence is revealing: commercial carbon storage requires agreements above ground as well as suitable geology below it. An oil company can know the subsurface intimately and still have a great deal of organizing left to do.

The next deal includes a subtraction

In September 2026, CRC completed an approximately $63 million cash acquisition of Crimson Midstream Holdings. The addition brought a pipeline network into a portfolio already containing production, land and carbon-storage projects. Leon described the practical benefit as getting California-produced barrels to markets with greater flexibility.

He also raised the possibility of using pipeline corridors in a future CO₂ transportation network. That possibility remains under evaluation. An existing corridor offers an option, rather than an operating carbon pipeline by declaration. The attraction is easy to follow: assets acquired for one purpose may have value in the next phase of the company’s plans.

Sixteen days later, CRC announced an agreement to sell its Uinta Basin assets for approximately $90 million. The sale was expected to close by year end, subject to consents and other conditions. Leon said the proceeds would increase capital-allocation flexibility and help offset the recent midstream purchase. Expansion, it turns out, can involve editing the map.

The proposed Golden Valley Technology Hub adds another possible use for CRC’s Elk Hills footprint. Announced with Beacon Data Centers, it is a proposed data-center development, linking the company’s land and energy capabilities with demand from computing. It belongs in the category of projects to watch. Its eventual value will depend on execution, just as the acquisitions did.

More room behind him

For all the discussion of reservoirs and returns, Leon’s ambitions also concern who gets to lead. He has argued for a larger pipeline of Latino executives, moving beyond the repeated celebration of an individual first. The thought follows naturally from his own childhood: opportunity matters most when other people can reach it too.

His commitments extend beyond CRC. They include the National Petroleum Council, the Western States Petroleum Association, Hispanics in Energy and the California Chamber of Commerce. He also serves on the American Red Cross Los Angeles Region board and the McCombs BBA advisory board. From 2019 to 2022, he served on the board of Los Angeles’s Union Rescue Mission.

There is a competitive streak in his account of leadership. He remembers wanting the ball at the end of a high-school football game, and credits coaches with recognizing leadership in his preparation and conduct. He still reaches for sports when explaining work. It is a useful vocabulary for an executive whose results depend on people performing jobs far from the microphone.

The border crosser now has several timetables to manage: production, integration, carbon storage, proposed developments and the slower work of earning agreement. His childhood offers a modest lesson for that assignment. A destination can be clear while the route demands adjustment. Sometimes the line stops moving. You get out of the car, find the trolley and keep going.