Franco Valente was born in 1956 and grew up in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. After completing his secondary education at St Andrews High School in Kirkcaldy, he pursued a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Mechanical Engineering at Napier College of Commerce and Technology, Edinburgh, from 1975-1978. On gaining the HND with distinction in June 1978, he joined Ferranti Ltd, Edinburgh, as a production engineer. In September 1979, at the suggestion of a friend who had lately taken a similar route, he applied to study for a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Strathclyde and was accepted for direct entry into the third year of the course in October 1979. He graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Science with Honours in Mechanical Engineering in July 1981.
After leaving Strathclyde, he spent four months as a graduate trainee with the South of Scotland Electricity Board in Glasgow, followed by 18 months as a graduate trainee with Det Norske Veritas in Oslo, Norway, working firstly in the vibration analysis department and then in the ship strength department. On completing his graduate traineeship, he remained with Det Norske Veritas and the company gave him a year’s study leave to take a postgraduate qualification at Strathclyde. He returned to the University as a full-time student in October 1984 and graduated with the degree of Master of Science in Marine Technology (by instruction) in 1986.
Thereafter, he worked as an engineering surveyor for Det Norske Veritas in Marseille, France, and as an engineer at the company’s headquarters in Oslo. In 1991, he became a Chartered Engineer and a Member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. His subsequent employers included Lloyds Register (1998-1991); British Gas Exploration and Production Ltd (1991-1997), British Gas International Ltd (1998-2005), KPDL (2005-2011), BG Tunisia (2011-2014), BG Reading (2014-2016) and Tullow Oil (January-November 2017). Having ultimately moved into facilities engineering management, he gained the Fellowship of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in 2010 and retired from full-time employment in 2017 but continued to work part-time on an ad hoc basis until 2021.