Our executive management team has been drawn from a combination of financial services, legal and business and geological backgrounds.
Our independent directors bring to the board a wealth of experience derived from their successful track records in the development of substantial gold operations.
* denotes Board Member
^ denotes Audit Committee Member
º denotes Compensation Committee Member
Charles Koppel – Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer *
Charles Koppel has over 20 years of international experience in company acquisitions, management and restructuring in highly regulated environments resulting from being an entrepreneur and founder of numerous businesses across diverse industries including media and telecoms, sport and entertainment, oil and gas and mining.
Mr. Koppel is the founder and a director of Samco Resources Limited established in 2006 to identify, acquire and develop mining properties in South America, principally exploration and development properties in Argentina, Chile and Peru. Mr Koppel was responsible for the development of the group’s activities in Argentina resulting in the acquisition of the properties that comprise the Corporation’s asset portfolio.
Mr. Koppel is also a non-executive director of, or advisor to, various privately held mining and exploration companies in South America and Southern Africa.
Matthias Hauger – Chief Financial Officer
Matthias Hauger has extensive experience of financial and operational management,business planning and company restructuring as a result of being a shareholder in and senior executive, as CEO, CFO and COO, of numerous international companies in diverse sectors.
He has worked with the Samco Resources Group since 2006 as consultant advisor, including as Director of Finance and Operations for the Chilean business from 2007 to 2009.
He was President of a successful private property group for over 18 years. He was an investment banker with Schroders and Morgan Stanley for 10 years, working in mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance on a regional and product basis.
John Hick - Director * ^ º
Mr.
Hick is a corporate director and President & CEO of his own
consulting firm, John W. W. Hick Consultants Inc. Mr Hick has over 30
years of experience in the mining industry in both senior management
positions and as an independent director. He has, in the past, held
senior management positions in a number of mining companies, including
President & CEO of Medoro Resources Ltd., CEO of Rio Narcea Gold
Mines Ltd., President & CEO of Geomaque Exploration Inc./Defiance
Mining Corp., and President of TXV Gold Inc. He is currently an
independent director of a number of TSX (or TSXV) listed mining
companies including Algold Resources Ltd., Carpathian Gold Inc., Eurotin
Inc., Hudson Resources Inc. Marengo Mining Limited and St Andrew
Goldfields Ltd. Mr. Hick is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada,
although not currently practicing law.
The board considers Mr. Hick to be independent. Mr. Hick chairs the Audit Committee.
Dr Jens Jasper - Director * ^
Dr Jasper has more than 25 years of experience at senior and executive level in the technical and economic assessment and project management within the mining and other extractive industries particularly in South America and Africa, but also elsewhere internationally.
Since the mid-1990’s, he has specialised in identifying new mining and other extractive business opportunities around the world worthy of potential investment by carrying out assessments and feasibility studies, conducting economic and financial evaluations, negotiating contractual arrangements, establishing new companies, and directing the start-up and development of new projects.
Dr Jasper has a sound understanding of value chain and sustainability management in the mining and other extractive industries and the interplay between technical, commercial, legal, economic, environmental, and social aspects of projects, and technically reviewed and economically assessed numerous multi-million US Dollar capital projects, including the mining portfolio of Samco Gold Limited that eventually led to its IPO in 2011.
Dr Jasper is also technical advisor and director of several publicly listed and privately held mining and exploration companies with operations in North and South America.
Paul Fornazzari – Corporate Secretary
Mr. Fornazzari is a partner at the law firm of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP in Toronto where he advises public companies,including mining companies, on securities, mergers and acquisitions and corporate law matters.
Mr. Fornazzari has served as a director and Corporate Secretary of Latin American Minerals Inc. (a mineral exploration company listed on the TSXV with its principal project in Paraguay) since May 2005, Chairman of Lithium Americas Corp. (a mining company developing a lithium salt lake in Argentina listed on the TSX) from July 2009 to February 2010, and a director of Alpha North General Partner Inc., the general partner of Alpha North 2010 Flow-Through Limited Partnership (a public flow-through fund) since January 2010.