Colin Bird

Executive Chairman

Executive Chairman Colin is a chartered mining engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining with more than 40 years’ experience in resource operations management, corporate management, and finance.  Colin has multi commodity mine management experience in Africa, Spain, Latin America and the Middle East. He has been the prime mover in a number of public company listings in the UK, Canada and South Africa. His most notable achievement was founding Kiwara Resources Plc and selling its prime asset, a copper property in Northern Zambia, to First Quantum Minerals for US$260 million in November 2009.

Joel Silberstein

Finance Director

Joel holds an Honours Bachelor of Accounting Science degree from the University of South Africa.

He qualified as a chartered accountant with Mazars, Cape Town in 2002, and subsequently joined Toronto-quoted European Goldfields Limited. There he held the position of Group Financial Controller and Vice President Finance, supporting the executive team in growing the company through its exploration and development phases, until it was bought by Eldorado Gold in a C$2.5bn deal.

He joined AIM-traded Xtract Resources plc in mid 2013 and was appointed finance director in February 2014. He has subsequently assisted in several corporate transactions, including those surrounding the Manica gold mining operations, and he has experience of working in multiple jurisdictions around the world.  He also joined the Galileo Resources Plc board in October 2020 as Financial Director.

He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of South Africa as well a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Alastair Ford

Non-executive Director

Alastair Ford has been involved in the mining sector for more than two decades. For many years he was the mining correspondent at The Investors’ Chronicle, the UK’s number one investment magazine. He also played a key role at Minesite.com, the mining investment portal that was prominent during the last mining boom and in the aftermath. He was subsequently Chief Investment Officer and Chief Executive of Mineral & Financial Investments, an Aim-listed mining and commodities investment vehicle, and is currently a non-executive director of Great Western Mining.

Kjeld Thygesen

Non-Executive Director

Mr Thygesen joins the Board with a wealth of natural resource industry experience having worked as an executive director of N M Rothschild International Asset Management and subsequently, as the investment manager to several natural resource funds. Between 2002 and 2010 he served as a director of Ivanhoe Mines Ltd, which discovered and developed the Oyu Tolgoi mine in the South Gobi Desert of Mongolia, which was acquired by Rio Tinto. Mr Thygesen’s particular focus is in financing, valuation and corporate development.