Tom joined London Stock Exchange in September 2013 and is Head of International Business Development within Primary Markets.  In his role, Tom advises UK and international companies and their owners on the process of going public and life as a listed company on London’s markets.  Prior to joining London Stock Exchange, Tom was at Citigroup for over 15 years as a Managing Director in the Equity Capital Markets division, originating, structuring and executing equity and equity-linked transactions across UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa.  He has originated, structured and executed large number of IPOs and follow-on capital raisings over the years, including many involving a London listing.  Prior to Citi, Tom worked in Kleinwort Benson’s Equity Capital Markets team from 1994 to 1997. Tom graduated from Oxford University with a BA (Hons) degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

Laure Blanchard-Brunac is the Director of Policy & Partnerships of the Association of European Development Finance Institutions (EDFI), representing public bilateral finance institutions operating in developing countries. In parallel, Laure is an Investment Committee member of InvestEU, responsible for the Research, Innovation and Digitisation Window. InvestEU is the EU’s flagship initiative for sustainable investment in the EU. Laure’s experience spans over 20 years in investment, blended finance and EU policy. Prior to her current roles, she worked at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in various senior functions, at the European Commission and French Development Finance Institution Proparco. After spending more than 10 years executing debt and equity transactions in corporates, financial institutions and infrastructure projects, Laure has contributed to the implementation of key EU policy initiatives, including EU financial instruments under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) as well as the European Fund for Sustainable Development (EFSD). Laure holds a postgraduate Grande Ecole degree from HEC Paris.

Veronica holds a solid background of 20 years of Africa-focused trade and investment experience. She brings extensive knowledge of African trade relations and has advised African heads of state on their foreign direct investment approach to create and broaden opportunities for investment in Africa. Veronica has advised and led Africa investment strategies for several FTSE 100 companies, including De Beers, Anglo-American and Vodafone, among others. She is currently consulting for several corporate clients, including working as an Investment Lead for a multi-million-pound FCDO-funded programme supporting the Government of Ghana to attract industrial investors into key sectors of growth, including the automotive, pharmaceutical and textile and garments industries. Veronica’s passion is to foster growth through trade and investment in Sub-Saharan African nations, and she was recently recognised by the United Nations as a Top 100 Most Influential Person of African Descent in Business. Veronica is an advisory board member of Akojo Market, an Ambassador for the Halo Trust and a Non-Executive Director of Thirdway Capital. 

Jonathan (Jon) Butler is Head of Business Development at Mitsubishi Corporation. Based in London, Jon specialises in the sales and marketing of platinum group metals, silver and gold as well as leading Mitsubishi’s precious metals research and strategy. Jon works closely with the refining industry and key end users in the automotive, pharmaceutical and fine chemical sectors and is closely involved with Mitsubishi’s new market development and investment in the hydrogen industry. Jon previously worked in various marketing and research roles at Johnson Matthey, and holds a PhD and Master’s degrees in earth sciences from the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford. He is a Board and Executive Member of the IPMI and currently serves as Co-Chair of the Platinum Group Metals Refining Council as well as on the LBMA Public Affairs Committee.

George is a portfolio manager and metals and mining specialist in the Thematic Equity team within Multi-Asset. He joined the firm in 2007. George is a portfolio manager for the Global Gold Fund and co-portfolio manager for the diversified Natural Resources strategies. He covers all aspects of metals and mining supply and demand including, most recently, the impact of renewable energy and electric vehicles on metals demand. Prior to this, he was a market analyst for three years at BHP Billiton, working in The Hague and Singapore. He was recruited to BHP Billiton in 2004 from CRU (Commodities Research Unit), an independent metals/chemicals related research company based in London. At CRU, he spent three years in the Carbon Steel team and five years as a Research Manager – Copper, providing in-depth research and forecasts to the industry, banks and hedge funds. George began his career in 1990 in operations at British Steel Strip Products, working for three years in the Tinplate division. George graduated from the University of Oxford in 1989 with an Honours degree in Classics and in 1995 was awarded an MBA from Warwick University.

Mark is a mining engineer by training having started his career in deep underground coal mining in Australia in 1976. In his 46+ years of experience, he has had line and support responsibilities across all forms of mining, processing and product marketing, having worked across 6 continents, 20 countries and with more than 30 minerals and metals. He is recognised as a major industry leader and innovator with a track record for delivery of improvements across all facets of business performance. Mark retired from his role as the Chief Executive Officer of Anglo American (AA) in April 2022 after more than 9 years and delivering the significant restructuring and revitalisation across all facets of its global mining business. In his period of tenure, AA  delivered industry leading capital and shareholder returns underpinned by a doubling of employee productivity, with associated material cost reductions and improvements in capital returns. At the same time AA moved from lagging industry performance in sustainability and innovation to being an acknowledged leader in value creation through new and progressive social, technical, and commercial transformations. Prior to his AA position he was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for AngloGold Ashanti. Mark was responsible for the recovery and turnaround of the business after successfully dealing with the industry’s most significant “out of the money” gold hedge book. Mark has also held senior executive positions with the Inco and Vale, the Normandy Group, Sons of Gwalia, Western Mining Corporation, Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines and CRA (Rio Tinto). Mark is also a past President of the International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM) and the South African Chamber of Mines (now Minerals Council). Consistent with his business transformational reputation, Mark has been honoured by both the Australian and South African mining industries, receiving the AusIMM Industry Award and the SAIMM Brigadier Stokes Awards, the peak industry awards for service to the industry in both countries. He has been recognised by Mines and Metals as the leading Industry CEO in 2019 and in 2022 was awarded their Lifetime Achievement Award. In the areas of sustainability and responsible social, he has been recognised by the Thomas Edison Global Innovation Awards for Collaborative Change through the Development Partner Institute, he was the “Technoserve 50th Anniversary Honouree” – in honour of “extraordinary leadership in creating sustainable business solutions to end poverty around the world” and more recently as Europe’s most sustainable mining leader.

Mark is currently a Non-Executive Director of TotalEnergies based in Paris and is the Senior Independent Director for Laing O’Rourke based in the UK. On 1 July 2023 he was appointed Chair of Vale Base Metals. He is also involved with numerous NGOs covering global nutrition for women and children, ethical and sustainable business practices, and development of young and emerging business executives.

Henk de Hoop is the new CEO of SFA (Oxford). SFA (Oxford) is a world-renowned authority on platinum-group metals and provides in-depth market intelligence on battery raw materials and the hydrogen economy. Henk holds an MSc in Mining Engineering from the University of Technology in Delft and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. After starting his career in South Africa working on the gold mines, he spent the next 12 years working for various stockbroking firms, covering listed mining stocks in the gold, diamonds, PGMs, coal and diversified space. He became the top-rated PGMs analyst for 3 consecutive years from 2005-2007. He joined Rand Merchant bank as a resource sector investment banker in 2008, working on a broad range of M&A, debt, and equity raising transactions, before joining SFA in 2022.

Rohitesh “Ro” Dhawan is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM). Under his leadership, ICMM has undertaken landmark commitments and action on critical sustainable development issues, including the first industry-wide net zero commitment, pioneering actions on diversity, equity and inclusion, and significant steps towards radical transparency of the industry’s contribution and performance, including on tax and contract disclosure.
Ro is a Fellow and faculty member of the Africa Leadership Initiative and a Raisina fellow at the Asian Forum on Global Governance. He serves on the Advisory Boards of the Columbia Centre for Sustainable Investment, Concordia, and Resolve. He has served on the UK Government’s Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions (PACT) Programme and was named one of South Africa’s climate change leaders for his work with the country’s mining sector.
Ro hold a Master’s in Environmental Change & Management from the University of Oxford in the UK and an undergraduate degree in Economics from Rhodes University in South Africa.

Tetiana has over 10 years of experience in impact investing. Since joining the EBRD in 2014, Tetiana has led numerous complex project financings involving debt and equity with a total value of more than EUR 1 billion of investments by the EBRD. In her current role, Tetiana is responsible for leading origination and execution of investments in the mining sector in the EBRD’s countries of operations. Before the EBRD, Tetiana worked as an associate in a corporate finance team at KPMG. Tetiana holds an MSc degree in Finance from Lund University, Sweden.

Neal Froneman was appointed executive director and CEO of Sibanye-Stillwater on 1 January 2013. Over the past five years he has led the transformation of Sibanye-Stillwater from a 1.5Moz South African-based gold producer into a leading precious metals miner with an international operating footprint ranking among the world’s top three PGM producers. His career spans more than 30 years during which time he worked at Gold Fields of South Africa Limited, Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited (Harmony) and JCI Limited. In April 2003, Neal was appointed CEO of Aflease Gold Limited (Aflease Gold), which, through a series of reverse take-overs, became Gold One International Limited (Gold One) in May 2009. He was primarily responsible for the creation of Uranium One Incorporated (Uranium One) from the Aflease Gold uranium assets. During this period, he was CEO of Aflease Gold and Uranium One until his resignation from Uranium One in February 2008. He held the CEO position at Gold One until his appointment at Sibanye-Stillwater. In May 2016, he was elected to serve as a Vice President of the Chamber of Mines of South Africa (now the Minerals Council South Africa).

Paul Gait is the Chief Economist for Anglo American responsible for the Group’s analysis and interpretation of the commodity markets and the broader macroeconomic environment. Prior to joining Anglo American plc, Paul was Chief Investment Officer and Director of Research at Azvalor Asset Management and was responsible for running the firm’s natural resource exposure spanning a broad sectoral mandate (base metals, bulk commodities, diversified mining, precious metals, energy and agriculture).  Over a short course of time, he successfully steered the company into being one of the best performing funds in Europe. Paul spent 11 years as Senior Vice President of Sanford Bernstein and Managing Director of Alliance Bernstein, building the metals and mining franchise within Sanford Bernstein and producing sell-side research covering the global economy markets and mining industry.  By working in both business sectors, he also played a key role in the development of the company’s short and long-range commodity price forecasts as well as the construction of macroeconomic analysts.  Previous to his work at Alliance Bernstein, Paul contributed to the strategic direction and the investment decision-making progress of Anglo American plc in this role as Lead Manager in Strategy and Business Development. Earlier accomplishments include formulating the repeal of the Petroleum Revenue Tax on third party use of North Sea infrastructure during his tenure at HM Treasury in 2003 as well as delivering a transformational internal study on the drivers of M&A success at McKinsey & Co. Paul graduated from Cambridge University with a double first in Natural Sciences (BA) and a first in Theoretical Physics (MSci) before undertaking post-graduate research in the Department of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics.

Tim Gould was appointed the Agency’s Chief Energy Economist in 2021. As Chief Energy Economist, he provides strategic advice on energy economics across a wide range of IEA activities and analysis. Tim is also Head of the Division for Energy Supply and Investment Outlooks, in which capacity he co-leads the World Energy Outlook, the IEA’s flagship publication, and oversees the Agency’s work on investment and finance, including the World Energy Investment Report. Tim joined the IEA in 2008, initially as a specialist on Russian and Caspian energy, and in recent years has designed and directed the World Energy Outlook together with the IEA’s Chief Energy Modeller while contributing to the Outlook as a principal author. Prior to joining the IEA, he was Senior Advisor to the Secretary General of the Energy Charter and has ten years of experience in Eastern Europe, primarily in Ukraine. He graduated from Oxford University and has a post-graduate diploma from the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. 

Chris Griffith has been associated with Vedanta since October 2023. He has been appointed to lead the Vedanta Base metal business which incorporates the Zinc International business which has their mines and concentrators in South Africa and Namibia, Konkola Copper Mines in Zambia and the Copper smelting and refining business in India and Fujairah Gold in the UAE. Prior to joining Vedanta, Chris started his career with Gold Fields before moving to Anglo American Platinum. At Anglo Plats he worked his way up from miner to General Manager and then ran a portfolio of six joint ventures for the Group as Head of JVs. Chris then went on to become the CEO of three different publicly-listed companies: Kumba Iron Ore (2008-2012), Anglo American Platinum (2012-2020) and Gold Fields (2021-2022). Chris has an honours degree in Mining Engineering from the University of Pretoria. 

David joined RCF in 2019 following a banking career in London that included senior positions with Bank of Montreal and Société Générale. During this time he led a wide range of mining financing and advisory transactions across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Prior to this he worked as an Exploration Geologist and Precious Metals Analyst.

Terry Holohan brings more than 40 years of experience in the precious and base metals mining industry to the panel. Having held various executive and technical mining positions in Africa for 30 years and in Asia for 10 years, Terry provides excellent insights into operating in challenging environments where he has led many successful projects. In 2022, he was appointed CEO of Resolute Mining, which enabled him to lead a turnaround strategy, bringing about improved operational performance and cutting costs at the company’s Malian and Senegalese operations and advancing the company's prospective exploration projects in Guinea.

Martin is a qualified mining engineer with 25 years in multiple areas of the mining industry. In his career he has shown a strong strategic and operating acumen as well as demonstrating a longstanding commitment to environmental and social responsibility within mining, which is central to Centamin’s decision-making and corporate strategy. From 2009 to 2019 Martin was the Co-Founder and CEO of Toro Gold Ltd, where he oversaw the discovery, development and operation of the Mako Gold Mine in Senegal. Toro was acquired by LSE and ASX listed Resolute Mining in August 2019. Prior Martin was Executive Director of BDI Mining, an AIM listed diamond producer, and from 2000 to 2006 he worked in mining finance at Barclays Capital in London, where his responsibilities included technical appraisal and advisory services across Africa and the Middle East. He also held consulting engineer roles with SRK Ltd and started his career as a mining engineer with Gold Fields of South Africa.

Peter is a partner and the global Africa Chair at Herbert Smith Freehills. During the last decade International Who's Who of Mining Lawyers, Best Lawyer, Legal 500 EMEA, Chambers and Partners and other peer reviewed global legal directories have consistently identified him as one of the world's pre-eminent mining lawyers. In 2022 Who's Who Legal named him a Global Elite Thought Leader for Mining and Chambers Global Guide: Energy & Natural Resources: Mining 2022 ranked Peter in Band 1 with sources stating that "He brings solutions to issues you wouldn't think of, bringing to bear relevant experience from right across Africa."

Peter excels in helping resolve contentious issues arising from mining projects and related developments in Africa. His areas of expertise include crisis management, resource nationalism, mineral and petroleum regulation in developing countries (including international best practice) black economic empowerment and indigenisation law, international investment law and investment protection. Peter’s experience also includes the Middle East where he has recently represented the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as international legal counsel on the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources’ mineral law reform project.

Tal Lomnitzer is a Senior Investment Manager on the Global Natural Resources Team at Janus Henderson, a position he has held since 2019. He is a portfolio manager within the suite of Global Natural Resource strategies. Prior to this, he was Deputy Head of Global Resources and Fund Manager at Colonial First State Global Asset Management from 2011. He launched and ran various global resources and energy funds at Merchant Capital, NewSmith Capital, and ORN Capital, where he was a partner from 2010, 2007, and 2004, respectively. Tal began his career in 1998 at Morgan Grenfell/Deutsche Asset Management after receiving first-class BA and MA degrees in Economics from Cambridge University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and has 24 years of financial industry experience. He has is a certified company director and serves as Chairman of HVH Arts, a charity serving underprivileged children in London.

Mr Mosa Mabuza is a qualified geologist with a BSc (Hons) in Geology (Wits), PDA in Business Management as well as holds a Global Executive Development Programme from GIBS. He has extensive exploration experience in multiple regional jurisdictions that span SADC, West Africa and Canada, amongst others. He assumed his official duties in 2006 as Director of Mineral Economics in the erstwhile Department of Minerals and Energy and later became Deputy Director-General of the Mineral Policy (and Investment Promotion) in 2012. During his tenure as an official; he was assigned with the duties of leading the preliminary strategy for sustainable development and meaningful transformation of South Africa’s mining industry with emphasis on competitive growth and transformation as a symbolistic reinforcing concepts, the development of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Amendment Bill and the assessment of the progress impact on the implementation of the Mining Charter in 2009 and 2015, which respectively based the evidence value proposition for the amendments of the 2010 and 2017 Mining Charter. Mr Mabuza was represented the Department of Mineral Resources in the boards of number of science councils and State Owned Entities, including, albeit not limited to the Council for Geoscience, Mintek, and the South African Diamond and Precious Metals Regulator. In November 2016, Mr Mabuza was deployed to the Council for Geoscience and now serves as CEO of the CGS (since July 2017). He is currently working with his colleagues to champion the refocused geoscientific programme that seeks to optimise the developmental impact, aligned with the national developmental priorities.

Ryan MacWilliam joined First Quantum in 2019 and led the business development and investor relations functions prior to being appointed Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining First Quantum, Ryan was the Chief Financial Officer of Nevsun Resources, a Canadian base metals company, until its acquisition by Zijin Mining. He was previously a founding member of X2 Resources, a mining private equity fund. Ryan has also held finance and corporate development roles at Anglo American in the copper, iron ore and platinum divisions. He holds a Bachelor's of Business Science with honours in Finance from the University of Cape Town, a Chartered Financial Analyst designation and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar.

Louis Maréchal joined the Centre for Responsible Business Conduct of the OECD in September 2014. He specifically works on projects related to the implementation of the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas. His current portfolio entails, amongst other things, responsible sourcing of transition/critical minerals and responsible sourcing of gold. Prior to joining the OECD, Louis Maréchal worked for four years with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France on issues related to transparency and governance in the mining sector and security of supply of strategic metals.
He started his career with a strategic consultancy firm focusing on the defence and extractives industries.

Brian Menell is a British/South African industrialist and investor with natural resource and energy interests across both emerging and developed markets.  He is the Chairman and CEO of TechMet Limited, a private investment company with a portfolio of mining, processing and recycling assets that produce the metals critical to the energy transition – lithium, nickel, cobalt, rare earth metals, tin, tungsten and vanadium. TechMet has assets across North and South America, Europe and Africa. Brian serves as the Chairman of Brazilian Nickel Ltd, a nickel/cobalt mine in northern Brazil, he is a Director of Trinity Metals, an integrated tin and tungsten producer in Rwanda, US Vanadium, a vanadium specialty chemicals company in Arkansas, and of TechMet-Mercuria, a global critical minerals trading and supply chain services company in Geneva. He is a former Principal and Executive Director of Anglovaal Mining (AVMIN) with extensive base metal, precious metal and ferrous metal interests across Southern Africa, and a former Director of Anglovaal Ltd, a diversified industrial and mining holding company. Prior to Anglovaal, Brian spent eight years with the De Beers Group.

Anton Mifsud-Bonnici is a Mediterranean EU-based business advocate and ESG master strategist. He is a thought leader on governance issues with extensive multi-stakeholder management and responsible extractive industry standards experience. He has advised governments and investors over a 25-year period in emerging and developing economies on projects and sites. Early in his career Anton co-authored the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. He has saved many lives in conflict and genocide zones in Europe and Africa. At the moment his other non-exec roles include Abkons Consulting and Crystol Energy. Anton is also an unpaid advisor to civil society organisations dedicated to good governance, gender equity and human rights in Mozambique, Sierra Leone, DRC, Bosnia and Yemen. He is a graduate of the University of Malta and of Columbia University.

Craig Miller joined the management committee and board of Anglo American Platinum as Finance Director in March 2019, and will take over as CEO with effect from 1 October 2023.  With over 23 years of mining industry experience, he is a seasoned senior executive who has worked in South Africa, Brazil and the UK, with expertise spanning Anglo American’s PGMs, base metals and bulk commodities businesses. In his role as Anglo American Platinum’s Finance Director, he led strategy development and execution and drove successful cost and value optimisation across the business. As CEO, Craig will continue to prioritise ensuring safe, stable and capable operations while fostering a diverse, inclusive and high-performance culture, all aimed at delivering sustainable ounces and industry-leading returns through the cycle. Prior to joining Anglo American Platinum in 2019, Craig held numerous roles across Anglo American, including Group Financial Controller, Chief Financial Officer of the iron ore business in Brazil and coal business in South Africa, and head of the Group CEO’s office. Craig began his career as a trainee accountant at Deloitte in Johannesburg and joined Anglo American in London as a Finance Manager in May 2000. Craig  is a chartered accountant CA (SA) and holds a Bachelor of Accounting Science (Honours) degree from the University of South Africa. He has completed the General Management Programme at Harvard University and an Advanced Management Programme at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs).

Mametja Moshe has over fourteen years’ finance experience in corporate finance, equities capital markets, debt capital markets, black economic empowerment, accounting, auditing and corporate tax fields. She is the founder and CEO of Moshe Capital. Prior to Moshe Capital, Mametja worked at Identity Capital Partners(“ICP”), a South African investment group, as an executive in finance and senior associate in the investments team. Mametja spent over four years in banking prior to ICP at Morgan Stanley from 2007 to 2010 covering South African, Zambian and Nigerian M&A and equity capital markets and UBS South Africa (2006 to 2007) covering South African M&A. During this period in banking she led teams in the execution of transactions worth over $4 Billion. Before her investment-banking career, Mametja spent five years at KPMG Inc., serving her auditing articles in the consumer products team and later joining the corporate tax team where she covered tax compliance, restructurings, M&A and BEE transactions.

Glen Nwaila is a professionally registered natural scientist and the Director of the Wits Mining Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand. He holds a PhD in Geosciences from the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (Germany) and MSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town (South Africa). He has a broad range of experience in process engineering, geometallurgy, innovation, technology development and adoption, as well as digital transformation. His primary focus in the past 14 years has been on the mining and metals industry

Piotr currently oversees copper market research and analysis at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Previously, Piotr spent 6½ years at Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), a major producer of copper and cobalt in the DRC, where he led copper and cobalt market analysis to support the group’s commercial and strategic functions. Piotr’s journey into commodities began at CRU, where he worked as a copper market analyst for 6 years.

Before joining Rothschild & Co in this role in 2003, she had 17 years of experience in the City of London at major financial institutions where she was consistently rated as one of the top investment analysts in mining, ending up as head of the European Mining Research at SSMB (part of Citigroup). In 2006, Fiona formed AIM Mining Research and, in the same year, published "Understanding Junior Miners" in conjunction with three geologists and a mining engineer. Prior to arrival in the City of London in 1986, she had six years of experience in financial journalism and academia in South Africa, building up a broad knowledge of managerial and financial topics. Fiona served as a non-executive director on the board of Dominion Diamond Corporation from February 2014 to January 2016.

John Reade joined the World Gold Council in February 2017 as Chief Market Strategist. He is responsible for producing strategy and developing insights on the gold market; leading our global dialogue by engaging with leading economists, academics, policy makers, fund managers and investors on gold; and leading our research team. John has over 30 years’ experience in the gold industry and related fields, most recently as a partner and gold strategist with Paulson & Co for the past seven years. Prior to that, he worked as a precious metals strategist at UBS for 10 years; a gold equity analyst in South Africa for 5 years; and over 8 years held various positions in production and project evaluation in the gold division of Gencor, then a leading South African mining house. John has a degree in Mining Engineering from the Royal School of Mines, a constituent of Imperial College, London.

Christophe has more than 30 years’ experience in natural resources financing and advisory, of which 25 years have been in extractive industries out of (successively) Frankfurt, Singapore, Paris and London. He has led SG’s mining, metals and industries activity in EMEA since 2017. During this time, he has strengthened SG’s regional leadership in mining project finance and expanded the bank’s advisory franchise along the mineral value chains to support downstream industrial investment requirements such as metal decarbonisation or EV batteries. This role in the mineral sector comes after 10 years leading SG’s upstream oil & gas finance and advisory franchise in the same region. Christophe graduated in business from the University of Cologne.

Mr. Shen graduated from Xiamen University with a bachelor’s degree in international trade. He holds an MBA from the National University of Singapore and a master’s degree in Management & Professional Accounting (MMPA) from the University of Toronto. He is a chartered professional accountant (CPA) in Canada. He joined Zijin Mining in 2014 and brings with him extensive experience in mine operations and management, international investment, merger and acquisition.

Errol is a geologist, registered with the South African Council of Natural Scientific Professionals. He has more than 25 years of industry experience across all aspects of exploration, mine development and operations with experience in precious and base metals. Errol has held positions in Anglogold, Cluff Mining, Metallon Gold, Clarity Minerals, LionGold Corporation and African Stellar Holdings. His senior executive roles have been on several boards of companies listed on the TSX, ASX and JSE.

Benedikt Sobotka is CEO of Eurasian Resources Group, a global metals and mining company that supplies critical raw materials for the green energy transition. He has extensive experience in the mining and energy sectors, having previously held various management positions at BCG advising multinationals worldwide, including in Germany, Russia, South Africa and the UK. Benedikt works in close partnership with the World Economic Forum, taking an active role in industry groups and wider initiatives. He sits on the Governors Steering Committee for the Metals and Mining Community and the Steering Committee for the Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI). He is Co-Chair of the Global Battery Alliance and a founding member of the Re|Source initiative, which work towards establishing an ethical and sustainable battery supply chain. Benedikt is also Advisor to the Hainan International Energy Exchange and an investor in high-tech start-ups, including MVS, which was sold to Platts/Dow Jones in 2015. In addition, he has co-authored a Financial Times top 10 bestseller, China Champions, about success strategies for investment in China. He holds an MA in Management from the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management and has also studied at the Rotterdam School of Management, CEIBS Shanghai and the Moscow Finance Academy.

Peter Steenkamp is Harmony’s chief executive officer and executive director from 1 January 2016. He has some 30 years’ experience in the mining industry, which include his last position as Senior Vice President: Mining of Sasol Mining Proprietary Limited, executive positions at Harmony from 2003 to 2007, African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) and Pamodzi Gold. He is a member and past president of the Association of Mine Managers, and a member of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the South African Colliery Managers’ Association.

Bernard has over 40 years of experience in the South African mining industry of which over 25 years has been in senior/executive management roles.  He qualified as a mining engineer and did a B. Com (Hons) in financial management. He was the Chief Executive Officer of Harmony for 12 years, before he founded To The Point Growth Specialists (TTP) with Clinton Halsey in 2008.

Bernard served for 11 years on the board of Sanlam and for 15 years on the board of African Rainbow Minerals.  He is chairman of Manganese Metal Company and past President of the AHI (and its inaugural chairman of the board when it became the SBI – Small Business Institute, a business chamber organisation). Through To The Point Growth Specialists he co-owns Resources for Africa Investment Conferences, which holds industry conferences like the Coal & Energy Transition Day, PGMs Industry Day, Hydrogen Economy Discussion, Junior Indaba, Joburg Indaba and the London Indaba. He chairs all of these conferences.  

Bernard currently serves on the board of Implats, Zimplats and African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation (AEMFC). He does strategy alignment, culture change and leadership development with his wife Tracey, through their consulting business THINKspiration. He recently registered as a member of the Institute of Directors.

Wilma Swarts joined Metals Focus as Director of PGM Research in April 2020. Prior to this she headed the commercial services and marketing functions at Lonmin Plc. Prior to joining the mining sector, she worked in the automotive industry. She holds a M.Sc. in International Business Administration from the University of London and an honours degree from the University of Johannesburg.

Dr Nombasa Tsengwa started her career in the mining industry in 2003 when she joined the then, Kumba Resources as the General Manager Safety Health and Environment. With the unbundling of Kumba and the inception of Exxaro Resources, she was appointed as Executive General Manager Safety and Sustainable Development. In 2010 she was appointed as Regional General Manager Coal Tied Collieries, overseeing three underground and four opencast operations. In 2015 she was appointed as acting Executive Head Coal Operations before formally taking hold of this position in May 2016. In this position she was responsible for oversight in the operations and functioning of the Coal Business and its ventures managed by Exxaro Coal. In this position she was also responsible for the marketing and logistics of all products. In July 2020, Dr Tsengwa was appointed as Managing Director Minerals, a new division, which was an expansion of her Coal and FerroAlloys portfolio to included new low carbon minerals. In March 2021 Dr Tsengwa was appointed CEO Designate, until she moved into the role of CEO from 1 August 2022 with the retirement of Mxolisi Mgojo. Before she joined Kumba, Dr Tsengwa worked in various South African Government departments, amongst others, as Deputy Director General of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. Dr Tsengwa is a member of the Exxaro Board and serves on the Board of the Minerals Council of South Africa. Previously, Dr Tsengwa served on the Astral Foods Pty.Ltd. Board of Directors as a non-Executive Director for nine years (2008-2017), during the last two years, she was also the Chairperson of the Remuneration Committee and a member of the Nominations Committee. In 2017, Dr Tsengwa was awarded the coveted Standard Bank Business Woman of the Year Award. This was followed by the Winner of the “Africa ‘s Most Influential Woman in Business and Government - Mining Industry Category” at the Pan African Awards in 2018. Exxaro Resources applauded her outstanding leadership and her role in advancing women in the workplace by awarding her an Evergreen Award in the category CEO Special Nomination in 2018. Dr Tsengwa believes in a balanced lifestyle with regular exercises. She is a keen runner and finished nine Comrades marathons.

Amanda van Dyke is the Managing Director of the ARCH Sustainable Resources Fund at ARCH Emerging Markets Partners Limited. The ARCH Sustainable Resources Fund is a private equity fund investing in sustainable mining companies that are capable of producing the critical minerals that are required to support the green economy and the transition to net zero. The fund is investing in companies across the value chain whose activities cover one or a combination of the following areas – the development, extraction, transformation or recycling of the raw materials that contribute to these objectives. Amanda has over 20 years of experience in commodity markets. Prior to ARCH, she managed an UCITS Gold and Precious Metals Fund at South River Asset Management, as well as multi-asset and fixed income funds. She also worked previously at junior investment banks Dundee Securities, Ocean Equities (now Pareto Securities) and GMP as a mining specialist in equity sales and has raised over US$500 million in debt and equity-related finance for junior mining in the UK and Canada, covering projects worldwide. Amanda is former Executive Chairman of Women in Mining UK, sponsored by Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Glencore. During her mandate, she re-launched Women in Mining UK into a globally recognised brand and network, increasing membership from 170 to 1700, and conceived, authored and published the first business case for women on boards in the mining industry following the completion of a three-year study of the top 500 mining companies in the world. She has a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University and MBA/Master of International Economics from Bocconi, including completing a year-long China specific programme at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai.

Ludivine Wouters is a consultant specialising in strategy, governance and mineral policy, with a focus on Africa and other emerging markets. She assists natural resources companies and investors with growth initiatives, regulatory affairs and permitting. She also works on technical assistance programmes for states and supports donor agencies in the definition, assessment and implementation of critical minerals, as well as responsible sourcing priorities, policies and initiatives. Previously, she worked in political risk insurance within a Lloyd’s insurance syndicate and gained significant legal experience in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions and capital markets with leading international firms in Paris. She also worked for an emerging markets investment bank in London, focusing on metals and mining clients, particularly African juniors.