H arold Hamm is a legendary American oilman and a key pioneer of the American shale oil revolution. He is the founder and chairman of Continental Resources, a major independent oil and gas exploration and production company. His is a classic rags-to-riches story. The youngest of 13 children of poor Oklahoma sharecroppers, he started his career by pumping gas and repairing cars before founding his own one-man oil services company.

He has since built Continental Resources into a major energy powerhouse by making a huge and early bet on the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and Montana. His pioneering use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') technologies helped to unlock the vast oil reserves in the Bakken, a breakthrough that transformed the U.S. into a global energy superpower. He has been an influential and outspoken advocate for the American oil and gas industry. He was previously a public company, but he took Continental private in 2022. He was also involved in one of the largest divorce settlements in U.S. history.