Board of Directors
Dr Colin Knight - Non Executive Chairman
Colin was appointed as a non-executive director and chairman of the Company on 14 June 2005. He is a mining engineer and economic geologist and, since 1983, has consulted on mining finance and policy on projects worldwide for London stockbrokers and banks and for the World Bank and Commonwealth Secretariat in developing countries in Africa. After military service in the Royal Engineers, Colin spent some 18 years in the Canadian mining industry, including exploration, operations, mining finance and ultimately consulting. He returned to the UK in 1974, working for the Rio Tinto group in London in European and overseas exploration, budget control, project appraisal and negotiations with joint venture partners and governments. Colin qualified in mining engineering at the Camborne School of Mines, and holds a degree in economic geology and a PhD from the University of Toronto. Professional in European Professional associations include FIMM (now FIMMM), CEng., PEng (Canada).
Graeme Hossie - Chief Executive Officer
Graeme co-founded London Mining in early 2005 and has been instrumental in building the Group from its first inception to its current status as one of the leading emerging new producers for the global steel industry. He has driven the overall development of the Group's expanding iron and coal projects and international management team as well as fund raisings and share placings of over USD400 million, asset and company acquisitions and joint venture partnerships, the establishment of off-take and strategic relationships, and the IPOs on Oslo Axess and the London AIM stock exchanges. Graeme led the acquisition, successful development plan (tenfold production growth) and subsequent disposal in 2008 of the Group's Brazilian operations for 1200% return on investment leading to full Group debt repayment, a GBP220 million special shareholder dividend and ongoing capital investment programme to develop the Group's other projects. Prior to founding London Mining, Graeme ran a venture development consultancy assisting natural resource industry and high growth venture companies and has founded and developed new ventures as principal adviser and executive in several industries including natural resources, media and consumer products. Graeme was previously a management consultant with Bain and Company in London, and in venture capital and innovation consulting with Piper Trust. Graeme holds a business degree from Ivey at the University of Western Ontario.
Rachel Rhodes - Chief Financial Officer
Rachel was appointed to the Board on 4 September 2008 as finance director. She is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, having qualified with Coopers & Lybrand in London in 1996. She has over 10 years' experience in the mining sector, of which the last five years prior to joining London Mining were in key financial roles with Anglo American plc. During this time at Anglo American, Rachel successfully led major corporate transactions, including the financial workstreams on the demerger of Mondi plc, Anglo's paper and packaging business, which was dual¬listed on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges and the Group's conversion to International Financial Reporting Standards in 2006. Rachel most recently served as Lead Corporate Finance Manager within Anglo American's corporate finance department. Rachel holds a master of arts degree in economics from Cambridge University.
Benjamin Lee - Corporate Development Director
Benjamin is involved in all financial and strategic aspects of current and future projects. Prior to joining London Mining in early 2009, Benjamin was head of UK Mergers & Acquisitions at Kaupthing Bank from 2007 to 2008. Among a number of transaction completed there, he was the lead adviser to London Mining on the disposal of their Brazilian iron ore mine. Prior to joining Kaupthing, Benjamin worked for 13 years in Mergers & Acquisitions at UBS in London and New York, advising on a wide variety of transactions for large and mid-sized companies. Benjamin graduated from Cambridge University in 1993 with an MA in Economics.
Luciano Ramos - COO of Iron Ore Division
Luciano is a Mining Engineer and has worked for over twenty-three years in the Brazilian mining industry including 15 years at CVRD/Vale between 1992 and 2007. He has also worked on international projects in Australia and Chile. Luciano has particular expertise in the following: management and coordination of process engineering at iron, gold, bauxite, kaolin and manganese plants; project implementation for both greenfield and brownfield operations; project coordination for the manufacturing of mineral processing equipment; management of processing operations; and technological research and development.
Sir Nicholas Bonsor - Non Executive Director
Sir Nicholas was appointed to the Board on 1 September 2007 as a non-executive director. A practising barrister specialising in regulatory and commercial law, Sir Nicholas was a member of British Parliament from 1979 to 1997 where he specialised in foreign affairs and defence, and was chairman of the Defence Select Committee from 1992 to 1995 and Minister of State at the Foreign Office from 1995 to 1997. Sir Nicholas has served on the board of several companies, including Blue Note Mining Inc. (Canada) from 2006 to 2008, and has served as the chairman of Egerton International Ltd from 2004 to present. He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, a freeman of the City of London (1988), a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Sir Nicholas practised as a barrister from 1967 to 1975 and from 2003 to the present day. Sir Nicholas holds a master of arts degree in jurisprudence from Oxford University.
Malcolm Groat - Non Executive Director
Malcolm was appointed to the Board on 4 September 2008 as a non-executive director having previously held the position of part-time finance director from June 2007. Malcolm is a fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, a fellow of the Institute of Directors, and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. In the mining sector, he serves as director at Nusantara Energy PLC and has served in the past on the boards of Platinum Mining Corporation of India PLC (admitted to AIM, 2005) and Tengri Coal PLC of Mongolia. Prior to working in the mining sector, Malcolm spent a decade in finance roles in large global engineering groups. Before that he qualified with PriceWaterhouse in London and worked internationally in corporate finance. Malcolm holds a Master of Arts degree in Modern History and International Politics from St. Andrews University and an MBA from Warwick University.
Dr Hans Kristian Schønwandt - Non Executive Director
Hans was appointed as a non-executive director on 4 January 2006. He was the deputy minister, head of the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum for the Greenland Government from 1998 until he retired in October 2005. Between 1987 and 1998 he was head of the department of economic geology at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. Hans has a PhD in economic geology from the University of Copenhagen.
Graham Mascall - Non Executive Director
Graham was appointed as a non-executive director on 1 May 2010. Graham is currently Chief Executive Officer of the Ncondezi Coal Company, an emerging private junior coal company focused on the Moatize coal basin in the Tete region of Mozambique, as well as having served until recently as a non-executive director of Caledon Resources, a coking coal miner in the Bowen Basin, Queensland. Graham holds degree from Cambourne School of Mines and McGill University.
Colin Harris - Non Executive Director
Colin John Harris is an exploration geologist with over 40 years experience at Anglo American (5 years), Cominco (14 years) and Rio Tinto (19 years). He is currently the Managing Director of iron ore company Zanaga UK Services Ltd, and is a non-executive director of AIM-listed Ncondezi Coal Company Limited. In the last five years he has also acted as a Director for Simfa S.A. Colin has a BSc in Geology from Rhodes University (South Africa). Colin has managed a number of iron ore exploration/evaluation programmes for Rio Tinto in West Africa and Europe including the Simandou Project in Guinea, where he led the team which took the project from grassroots to preliminary feasibility study stage, and the Isua Project in Greenland, which is now wholly owned by London Mining. He has also played a leading role in the development of the Zanaga Project in the Republic of Congo as Project Director of Zanaga Iron Ore Company ("ZIOC") and was instrumental in attracting Xstrata as a strategic shareholder. ZIOC was floated on AIM in November 2010.