Board of Directors

Colin Bird (aged 77) Executive Chairman

 

Colin Bird is a chartered 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.

 

The formative part of his career was spent with the National Coal Board in England where he was assistant underground manager. He moved to the Zambian Copper Belt in 1970 as an assistant underground manager before joining Anglo America Coal Division in 1974 as section manager. He then moved to Botswana in 1979 to be mine manager of the BCL Nickel Copper Mine, a joint venture between Anglo American Corporation, Amax and the Botswana Government. On his return to the UK, he worked with Hampton Gold Mine areas as a director of their coal mines in Scotland before joining Costain Mining Ltd as technical director in 1987 and thereafter Plateau Mining Plc as managing director in 1989.

 

In 1993 he was appointed operations and technical manager for Petromin, Saudi Arabia, of their gold mining activities with responsibility for an underground mine producing 175,000oz of gold and three gold mines in various stages of feasibility study and development. In October 1995 he joined Lion Mining Finance Ltd in London as technical manager and is now managing director and majority shareholder of that company.

 

Colin Bird founded and floated Jubilee Metals Group Plc. He is Chairman and CEO of Galileo Resources Plc and Chairman to Xtract Resources Plc. Colin serves on the board of directors of Tiger Royalties and Investments Plc as Chairman, an AIM listed Investment Company and largest shareholder in the Company. He is also a member of the board of the TSX listed exploration company, Revelo Resources Corp, formerly known as Polar Star Mining Corp, where he served as CEO for a period as well. Mr Bird serves as executive Chairman of Bezant Resources Plc. He joined the BMR Group Plc board as non- executive Director in April 2018. He founded and floated Kiwara Plc which discovered copper in northwest Zambia. The company was sold for US$260million to First Quantum within 30 months of formation.

Raju Samtani (aged 52) Finance Director

 

Raju is currently finance director of Tiger Royalties and Investments Plc, listed on AIM. His previous experience includes three years as Group Financial Controller at marketing services agency WTS Group Limited, where he was appointed by the Virgin Group to oversee their investment in the WTS Group Ltd. More recently he was finance director of Kiwara Plc which was acquired by First Quantum Minerals Ltd in January 2010. Over the last few years, he has been involved in senior managerial positions for several AIM / Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed companies predominantly in the resource sector and has also been involved in FCA compliance work within the investment business sector.

Christian Cordier (aged 51) Business Development Director

 

Christian has had considerable involvement in corporate finance and investments in both public and private mining and exploration companies for over 22 years. His portfolio includes joint ventures with major international mining houses, investments in listed companies in the United Kingdom, Australia and Southern Africa as well as private mining operations. He has extensive experience in sourcing natural resource projects and nurturing them through the value curve by packaging and arranging venture funding, managing the permitting and exploration process, negotiating off-take agreements and the formation of a strong management team. He worked as CFO and senior accountant as well as company secretary for private and public companies and is a member of SA Institute for Professional Accountants (“SAIPA”). Christian has done transactions in Coal, Pgm’s, Chrome, Copper, Potash, Phosphates, Diamonds, Gold, Lithium and Manganese. Christian focuses on business development and wealth creation for private and publicly listed companies in the mining and exploration sector.

Kjeld Thygesen (aged 73) Independent Non-Executive Director

 

Kjeld Thygesen is mining investment veteran of more than 45 years.  After being a mining analyst at James Capel in the latter half of the 1970’s he was manager of the commodities department at Rothschild Asset Management between 1980-89.  In 1990 he formed Lion Resource Advisors   as a specialist adviser in the mining and natural resource sectors.  LRA was the advisor to the Midas Fund in the US between 1992 -2000, which was one of the top performing finds during that period. From 2002-2008 he was Investment director of Resources Investment Trust, a London listed investment trust which returned a threefold investment during that period.  He has served  on several mining company boards over the past twenty years.

James Cunningham-Davis, (aged 54) Non-Executive Director

 

James Cunningham-Davis is a qualified Solicitor and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment, founder of the law firm Buckingham Legal and founder and Managing Director of Cavendish Trust Company Ltd, and Cavendish Secretaries Limited, all of which are  headquartered in the Isle of Man. Cavendish Trust and Cavendish Secretaries provide professional services to many private companies and various listed companies, across a number of sectors of industry and finance in many jurisdictions, though particularly in the Natural Resources/ Mining, Technology and Property sectors. James has worked within the international legal and corporate finance/service sectors for more than 25 years and has held many directorships in both private and listed companies.