Global Speakers

Bill Johnston was sworn in as the Mines and Petroleum, Commerce and Industrial Relations, Electoral Affairs, and Asian Engagement Minister in March 2017.
As our State’s first Asian Engagement Minister, Minister Johnston’s focus is to capitalize on the rapid population and economic growth in Asia to create more job-boosting opportunities in Western Australia. The Minister has a particular affinity with Indonesia, having spent time in West Java as a high school exchange student, and he maintains a working proficiency in both written and spoken Indonesian.
He was first elected as the Member for Cannington in September 2008.
In Opposition he served as Shadow Minister for State Development and Energy from 2012, and Shadow Minister for Mines and Petroleum from 2013.
Prior to entering Parliament, he was the State Secretary of WA Labor from 2001 until 2008, with responsibility for all State and Federal election campaigns. During this time he was also a member of the Australian Labor Party’s National Executive.

Evan is a highly experienced mining executive and has held a wide range of executive, senior management and operational roles in mining, both domestically and internationally over 25 years. Evan has held senior roles in Barrick Gold, Kagara, Goldfields of South Africa, Aditya Birla Minerals and GBF Mining Contractors. Prior to joining Kasbah he was most recently Chief Executive of Asian Mineral Resources. Mr Spencer brings extensive technical and strategic leadership skills and experience to the Kasbah Management team, guiding AMR through the completion of construction, permitting and commissioning of the Ban Phuc operations in Vietnam. In addition Evan has worked on asset integration in Saudi Arabia lead the strategic development and implementation of Barrick’s Kalgoorlie assets further lead the strategic direction for Barrick’s Papua New Guinea assets in the Ramu valley.
Evan has significant experience in project development, feasibility, permitting approvals and Joint venture management bringing key technical and operational management leadership to the Kasbah team as it embarks on the development of the Achmmach project.
Evan holds a Master of Mineral Economics, a Bachelor of Applied Science Geology (Hons), completed post-graduate studies in mine engineering, business, economics and frontline management. Mr Spencer also holds a W.A. First Class Managers Certificate.

Frank is ANZ’s Head of Natural Resources Australia based in Perth and has over 25 years experience in the resources and financing sectors. Frank has strong track record in institutional banking with detailed knowledge of complex structured financings, financial markets, M&A advisory, trade and transaction banking.

Prior to joining ANZ in late 2003, Frank was responsible for research of the mid-cap resources sector with Macquarie Equities. During this time he was closely involved in a number of equity raisings for mid-tier resource companies.

Frank also has ~7 years experience as a mining engineer, including 3 years in a consulting role where he was involved the preparation of feasibility studies for resource projects across wide range of commodities in Australia, Africa, South East Asia, Kazakhstan and Russia.

Mathew Collings is a Senior Associate at Resource Capital Funds. He joined RCF in 2014 after working as a Metallurgist for 10 years across Australia, North America and South East Asia. During that time Mathew worked for Newmont, Newcrest, Barrick, Xstrata, Pan Aust and St Barbara.

Mr Collings graduated from the WA School of Mines and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Metallurgy and Chemistry, as well as a Master of Science in Mineral Economics.

Mr Vincent Algar BSC (Hons) Geology, MAusIMM, is a geologist by profession with over 24 years’ experience in the mining industry spanning underground and open cut mining operations, greenfields exploration, project development and mining services in Western Australia and Southern Africa. He has significant experience in the management of publicly listed companies, which includes the entire compliance, marketing and management process and encompasses the development of internal geological and administrative systems, exploration planning and execution, plus project acquisition and deal completion. Mr Algar helped float and was Managing Director of Shaw River Manganese Limited from December 2006 – March 2012 and was responsible for successful capital raisings, which raised more than $40 million for the Company’s exploration and acquisition programs. He was instrumental in the $20 million acquisition of a 75.5% stake in the Otjo Manganese Project in Namibia, in 2011, which is currently being brought into production. Mr Algar has worked on a wide range of commodities including base metals, and uranium in Southern Africa as a consultant and analyst. As Managing Director of Australian Vanadium Ltd he is responsible for driving the company’s vertical integration strategy.  Vincent is a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and was instrumental in setting up Vanitec’s Energy Storage Committee.  Vanitec is the global vanadium organisation, representing all aspects of the vanadium supply chain.

Mr Tan is a highly experienced mining and chemical executive with a number of significant achievements in commercial mining projects such as capital raisings, funding, construction, start-ups and operations.

Mr Tan has been a Managing Director of a number of ASX-listed companies.

Jeff has worked in both the mineral and petroleum industries for over 39 years. He has worked throughout Australia and the world including the North Sea, Arctic Ocean, offshore Western Australia, Victoria, Queensland, New Zealand and the USA.

He joined the Department of Mines and Petroleum in 1991 as the Petroleum Data Manager. In 2006 he worked as the Manager – Petroleum Geology for the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA) managing the research and basin studies into petroleum systems in Western Australia.

In 2013 he became the Executive Director, Petroleum and oversaw the regulatory management of Western Australia’s upstream petroleum industry.

In 2018, he became Executive Director, Geoscience and Resource Strategy leading the Geological Survey of Western Australia and developing strategies for government for the resource sector.

Cameron is a co-founder of InfraNomics. InfraNomics is a WA infrastructure developer, financier and adviser. InfraNomics focuses on power, water, ports, transport and sustainable value creation. More details are on the website. www.infranomics.com.au.
Past projects include an industry market review for an ASX initial public offering on off-grid and fringe-ofgrid energy generation and distribution, advising on selling an oil and gas engineering company, advising on financing and trade flows for the outer harbour in Kwinana, developing distributed generation solutions for local government, raising finance for infrastructure investments, led the development of a new co-housing scheme project in Fremantle and developed business cases for the commercialisation of metro train stations.

Dr Naomi Boxall is a research scientist at CSIRO Land and Water with more than ten years’ experience in mining, waste treatment and resource recovery from strategic wastes such as electronic, mine and industrial wastes. Naomi completed her PhD in Industrial Biotechnology at the University of Western Australia. After working as an environmental consultant in acid sulfate soils and contaminated sites, Naomi returned to CSIRO to research innovative ways to recover of metals from lithium-ion batteries and other electronic wastes. Her areas of expertise are industrial and environmental biotechnology, the treatment of industrial wastes and resource recovery, along with process design, development and optimisation, and techno-economic assessment

With a background in local government and private sector senior management roles, Chris took up the role of Director (CEO) of the Kwinana Industries Council (KIC) in early 2007.

KIC is a small industry association, incorporated over 23 years ago. Its member industries are located broadly in the Western Trade Coast, and mainly inside the heavy industrial core of Kwinana. In Western Australia KIC as an industry peak body, is a respected voice and is viewed by many as a ‘go to’ organisation for informed comment.

KIC take on issues that are of collegiate interest to the members, and these range from maintaining relationships with community groups, local, state and federal governments; writing submissions and responses on all manner of subjects ranging from buffers, to transport, to regulatory reform proposals, utility reforms, and managing projects etc. The KIC members in the Kwinana Industrial Area (KIA) are responsible for the direct and indirect employment of about 30,000 workers and they contribute around $16Bn into the Western Australian economy annually. The KIA is regarded as world’s best practice in the area of industrial symbiosis with over 150 documented inter-company product, utility or waste exchanges occurring on an ongoing basis.

Chris holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Curtin) and an Executive Masters in Business (UWA), and completed the AICD Company Directors Diploma some years ago.

He considers himself to be a jack of all trades, as well as a bush lawyer, bush environmental scientist, bush engineer, and importantly for the development of the State, a connector of parties with various interests.

Having spent more than 40 years in mining, Mr Griffin’s expertise ranges from project identification, development and financing to overseeing the operation of integrated mining and processing facilities. His substantial international experience includes diamond exploration and production and being a founder and technical director of Ferrum Crescent, an iron-ore developer in South Africa.
Mr Griffin was also a founding director of Northern Minerals and Parkway Minerals (developer of the K-Max™ process to recover potassium and other metals from glauconite) and is a non-executive director of Reedy Lagoon Corporation. Most recently, he has been instrumental in identifying the global opportunity to establish lithium micas as a source feed for the lithium chemical industry.

Rob Mandanici has worked in both the Private and Government sector and has extensive knowledge of corporate governance, process and procedure.
Rob was previously a non-executive director of Auvex Resources Limited, a producing manganese miner that was subsequently acquired by Mineral Resources Limited.
More recently, Rob was a founding shareholder & Managing Director of Lithex Resources Limited, a lithium, tin & tantalum explorer and as Managing Director took the company from privately held, to a successful listing on the Australian Securities Exchange. Lithex now exists as Ultracharge.
Rob also owns and manages a successful boutique property agency & advisory business.

• 15+ Years with Emerson
• Strong Background in Process and HVAC Industries
• Has Held Multiple Leadership Roles in Sales, Marketing and Product Development across India and Asia-Pacific
• Passionate about helping Customers Achieve Top Quartile Performance by adopting Digital Transformation

• Master of Business Administration
• Working as sales manager since 1997, mostly with focus on development of customized solutions
• Working at Haver & Boecker Headquarter in Germany since 2007 as global Area Sales Manager in the Business Unit Chemicals
• Profound experience in building relationships based on confidence and understanding demands for next generation technology
• Preferred approach is to partner closely with clients and to define a common base with objective to create win-win scenarios
• Active as trainer of the HAVER Academy to educate global Haver staff, business partners and customers

Colleen is an accomplished leader who motivates others to achieve what they previously thought to be unachievable. Her leadership style is inclusive, and she possesses stellar strategic thinking ability and down to earth communication skills with the capacity to deliver on outcomes. She is a firm believer that change is exciting when you successfully ‘sell’ the vision of the new future and gain buy-in of all affected stakeholders.
Having worked and volunteered for the past 35 years in a number of multi-faceted, composite and challenging roles and situations within the private, government and not-for-profit sectors, she has become highly skilled at making decisions based on sound policy and consultation while applying common sense and simplicity to complex tasks.
She has been the CEO with Regional Development Australia Perth since 2013, having delivered a number of initiatives to drive new business investment and job growth for the Perth region. These include: Driving Change: Perth and Peel an Economic Development Strategy and Infrastructure Priorities Plan for Perth and Peel (2016); Security and Defence in Western Australia: An Economic Perspective (2017); Building the Case for Energy Metals and Battery Manufacturing in WA (2018) and the soon to be released Establishing the Perth DroneHub.

Grant Nicholas is ANZ’s Director of Natural Resources Group (NRG) for the bank’s Institutional business based in Perth, WA. His role as a relationship manager at ANZ covers high profile to emerging companies in the mining, and oil and gas industries.
Responsibility includes the coordination of product strategies for the client, developing financial solutions for his clients’ needs, and driving overall client EVA and responsibility for credit risk base.
Grant joined ANZ in 2010 as an Associate Director in ANZ’s NRG business in Perth, Western Australia. Prior to joining ANZ, he worked in the mining industry as a principal mining consultant, risk analyst, geostatistician and production and exploration geologist over a period of 15 years based in several locations around the world. His technical background has afforded him the opportunity to apply his skills in banking in the areas of deal creation opportunities and assisting with technical due diligence reviews, where necessary.
He has a Ph.D. in Mining Engineering specialising in Real Options Valuation and Spatial Statistics from the University of Adelaide, South Australia; a B.Sc. Honours (Cum Laude) in Economic Geology from Stellenbosch University, South Africa; and B.Sc. degrees in Computer Science and Geology from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

Mr Calderwood is Managing Director of lithium producer Tawana Resources who have successfully taken a lithium exploration asset to production in under 18 months.
Previously Mark was Managing Director of ASX-100 listed gold producer Perseus Mining Limited, a West African Gold producer and explorer, from its inception in 2003 until January 2013.
Mark has 30 years mineral exploration experience including over 7 years in pegmatite minerals. He is also co-author of the publication “A Guidebook to the Pegmatites of Western Australia.

Dom is a Director of Wright Legal – the only Western Australian law firm dedicated solely to banking and finance transactions – established in 2000.
Dom joined the firm in 2009 and offers extensive experience in banking and finance law, especially in the mining and resources sectors. He has successfully completed cross-border and domestic syndicated and bilateral loan transactions involving project finance, acquisition finance, corporate facilities, structured lending, development and investment finance. Dom is also sought for his expertise in derivatives transactions and offtake agreements.
Prior to Wright Legal, Dom worked in London in Allen & Overy’s banking and finance division, and in JP Morgan’s futures and options business. He also previously worked at Clayton Utz in Perth. He is qualified as a lawyer in Australia and England.

Christopher (Chris) Gale is the Managing Director of Latin Resources, an Australian listed mineral exploration company with a specific focus on South America. Latin Resources was one of the very first Australian exploration companies commencing in 2008 to develop a portfolio of high quality, copper and lithium projects in Peru and Argentina.
Chris has extensive experience in senior management roles in both the public and private sectors, especially in commercial and financial roles.
Chris is the current Chairman of the Council on Australian Latin American Relations (COALAR) established by the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). He is also a founding director of Allegra Capital, a boutique corporate advisory firm based in Perth and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).

Angus has over 25 years’ experience with Jord, supplying bespoke process plant and systems to the global resource and energy sectors.  Overseas postings have included Germany, Singapore and Korea.  Jord is a privately owned Australian firm established in 1972.  Since this time, Jord has delivered $5 billion of custom-engineered process plant and systems that span minerals crystallisation, filtration and dewatering, scrubbing, cooling, drying and condensing.  Previously, Angus worked for Lend Lease Corp, as a construction engineer and in its project finance division.  He holds degrees in Science and Law.

Dr Hans Oskierski is a mineralogist and geochemist and currently working as a lecturer in Extractive Metallurgy at Murdoch University.
His research areas include Isotope and environmental geochemistry, CO2 sequestration by mineral carbonation, Paleoclimate and radiometric dating, Mineralogy and economic geology and Extraction of Lithium from silicate sources.

The current projects that Dr Oskierski is involved in includes the following:

• Matrix effects in high-precision measurements of boron isotopes in marine carbonates by MC-ICP-MS
• Chemistry and isotopic composition of waters associated with the carbonation of ultramafic mine tailings, Woodsreef Asbestos Mine, NSW, Australia
• Isotope geochemistry of modern microbialites forming in serpentinite-hosted mining ponds
• Heat-activation of spodumene for lithium extraction

Scott Kelly is a liquid resource management specialist and Global Account Manager at Banlaw. He spends most of his time on the road, travelling to mine sites around the world. Scott’s approach is unique, consultative, and provides a deep understanding of which technologies might be chosen, to truly satisfy the business needs. He’s motivated by finding innovative ways to help companies resolve problems and achieve efficiencies related to hydrocarbons.
Scott’s career started in hydraulics; and over the course of several decades, his varied roles have included infrastructure, pumping and refuelling, machine fluids, and software.
In 2012 Scott joined the team at Banlaw, where he has been helping industrial organisations optimise all aspects of refuelling, fuel management, fluid transfer, overfill protection, as well as machine and facility services.
A keen racer and motorsports enthusiast; Scott Kelly literally lives and breathes hydrocarbons, both at work and on the track.

Born in Scotland Clark graduated from Edinburgh University with an Honours degree in Geology before migrating to Australia in 1969 in the middle of the Poseidon boom. He first worked with Cominco Exploration on nickel exploration in the Laverton district transferring a couple of years later to work as an underground geo at Cleveland Tin. 1974 saw Clark move to Shell Minerals working on a copper project in the Greenvale district of North Queensland. This was followed by a move to New Zealand where Clark became heavily involved in geothermal energy, working with consulting group, KRTA, on the Tongonan geothermal project located on the Philippine island of Leyte. Clark returned to Australia in 1980 undertaking base metal exploration work for Aquitaine at Lady Loretta, Queensland, and Big Stubby in the Pilbara. After running his own geology contracting business for some years, working for various companies mostly involved in gold exploration, Clark moved into open pit production worked for several gold companies operating in the Laverton district of WA. In 2004 Clark joined Sons of Gwalia at the Greenbushes Operation as senior geologist responsible for open cut and underground operations and transferred to Talison after the collapse of SoG. In this role, which Clark held until semi-retirement in 2016, he was responsible for all mine geology operational functions, including resource statement preparation, geotechnical monitoring and ore tracking. Since leaving Talison Clark has been employed part time by Tianqi Lithium as a technical advisor.

Mr Gregory is a senior resource industry leader with 18 years’ experience in developing projects and supporting mining operations with BHP, Murchison Metals and Mineral Resources. He has a deep understanding of the minerals value chain from geology, exploration, metallurgy, feasibility studies, approvals, economic evaluation and business development
Mr Gregory’s practical mining experience is well complemented by a strong academic background including a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Geology (UWA), MBA (UWA), Advanced Mergers and Acquisitions Program (Melb Uni) and Company Directors Course Award (AICD).

Liam Twigger has over 25 years’ experience in the fields of investment banking and corporate finance. He is Chairman and Managing Director of PCF Capital Group, a corporate advisory and investment banking business focused on the mining sector and Australia’s number one advisor on mine divestment. He is Chairman of MinesOnline.com, a Non-Executive Director of Gold Corporation (The Perth Mint) and Chairman of Football West Limited, the governing body for soccer in Western Australia.

Tom is an Associate Principal with the Perth office, and works on operational transformations within the resources sector and across infrastructure assets. In particular, he has supported a range of mining clients across commodities on large scale operations and capital productivity work. He joined McKinsey in late 2012.
Prior to joining McKinsey & Company, Tom spent ~6 years working in the construction industry both as a Project Manager in the UK and the Middle East (in contracting and engineering design). His megaproject work included large scale urban transport infrastructure (Crossrail), skyscraper design and broader public infrastructure delivery (London Olympic Stadium & Park).

Phil joined Tianqi Lithium Australia as General Manager in August 2016. He is responsible for the construction and operation of Tianqi’s Lithium Hydroxide Processing Plant in Kwinana, which commenced construction in October 2016, and is due for completion in late 2018.
Phil graduated as a Civil Engineer at UWA in 1980 and his career commenced working for Alcoa at their Kwinana alumina refinery. Phil then moved to Shell Australia where he had a 20 year career in Australia and around the world. Phil was appointed to the Board of Shell Australia as Downstream Director for his last 3 years, followed by a 5 year stint as CEO of Coogee Chemicals in Kwinana. For the past 3 years Phil was Managing Director of New Standard Energy Limited (NSE), a junior listed oil and gas explorer based in Perth.

Mr Kaderavek, an aerospace engineer, commenced his career as an RAAF Engineering Officer before transitioning to PricewaterhouseCoopers, preparing operational reviews and examining strategic options across mining, processing, railway and port facilities throughout Australia, North America and Europe. Operationally he has seven years of experience in large open cut mining operations and associated logistics. Over the last 15 years he has been involved in equities/investment research (including senior roles with Deutsche Bank and Five Oceans Asset Management) focussed on mining, minerals processing and energy storage technologies. Mr Kaderavek also held an international consulting role focussed upon renewable energy and battery storage technologies. Mr Kaderavek is the CEO of Cobalt Blue Holdings, a cobalt focussed mining development company which was incorporated on 26 August 2016 for the express purpose of developing the Thackaringa Cobalt Project in New South Wales, Australia.

Mike Rosenstreich is an international mining executive with over 30 years’ experience including;13 years as an exploration and mine geologist with Homestake Gold and Dominion Mining; 6 years Corporate Finance with Rothschild Australia; 9 years as founding Managing Director of ASX listed Bass Metals from pre IPO stage, exploration success and over 5 years of base and precious metals production; and 3 years at Keystone Resource Development providing corporate, technical and financial consulting services. During this time he has been involved in a wide range of commodities from gold and base metals to industrials such as tantalum, feldspar and mineral sands across the globe. He joined Hexagon in March 2017 and since then has been instrumental in charting Hexagon’s path to commercialise its McIntosh Graphite project, located in Western Australia.
Mike is a Fellow of the AusIMM and a member of the AICD. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Geology and Masters in Mineral and Energy Economics.

Peter Pham is an author, international fund manager, and a registered financial director by the Cayman Monetary Authority (CIMA). He currently manages the portfolio of Global Growth and Income Fund, an open-end fund designed to outperform the MSCI-Barra World Free index with a mix of high-growth and mature high-income vehicles. He also runs an asset management company, Phoenix Capital, hat offers investment and financial advisory services. Recently, he partnered with S&P Dow Jones to construct the VN30 Equal Weight Index.
In 2013, John Wiley & Sons published his first book, The Big Trade: Simple Strategies for Maximum Market Returns. The thesis of the book states that one must look at markets from an agnostic and pragmatic standpoint, and assess markets based on available information and statistics. These ideas have also been featured on The Motley Fool, Seeking Alpha, CNN Money, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Reuters, Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, Active Trader, Minyanville, Euromoney, and Trading Markets.
Overall, he has more than 15 years of experience in capital markets and fund management; recognized as an expert consultant in global equities.