The Honourable Polite Kambamura is the Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development in Zimbabwe.  He holds a BSc Honours Degree in Mining Engineering and is a Mining Engineer by profession.  He has worked several years for big multinational mining companies that include Anglo American and Lonrho. He has held several positions at senior managerial and directorship levels. Currently he is a sitting Member of Parliament for Sanyati Constituency.

Mr. Batirai Manhando was promoted to the position of Managing Director of Bindura Nickel Corporation (BNC) in November 2013 after having previously served as BNC Chief Operating Officer for nearly five years.  Batirai holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration and a BSc (Hons) in Metallurgical Engineering.  He has vast experience (in excess of 24 years) in business leadership, operations management, project management and systems development and implementation, acquired within the mining industry.  He previously served in senior positions within the BNC concentrators, the smelter and the refinery, before his appointment as Chief Operating Officer in 2008.  He has led teams in the planning and execution of major projects including six-line furnace rebuilds and process upgrades.  He is a member of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and also a member of Institute Of Directors of Zimbabwe.  Mr. Batirai Manhando is the current President of the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe.

Alex joined the Group as Chief Executive Officer on 1 October 2007, having formerly been the managing director of a Zimbabwean PGMs producer. He is the chairman of the operating subsidiary, Zimbabwe Platinum Mines (Private) Limited.

Eunomix™ is led by Claude Baissac. Claude is a specialist in sustainable development, growth and strategy with over 20 years of practice advising government, industry, and international organisations. His combination of expertise, at the nexus of policy, strategy and research, provides him with a unique perspective on the conditions for sustainable growth in complex societies. His clients have included most international donors, many governments, and blue chip companies. It has been his ambition to serve as a bridge between these sectors of society: 
One of the key thrusts of his career has been the problem of diversification and industrialisation in Africa, and its impact on the crucial need for employment creation, poverty alleviation and social capital enhancement. Claude is a recognised expert on special economic zones, and was President of the World Economic Zones Association between 2011 and 2014. Claude has a strong track record on the relationship between natural resources and sustainable growth, given the central role these play on the continent. 
Another key thrust has been his work with corporates as a specialist in country risk management, engaging in scenario planning, strategy and proactive risk management. For several years Claude was involved in corporate integrity management. In 2001 Claude was acting Deputy CEO for Air Afrique, an experience that motivated his subsequent involvement in risk management.
Claude has solid expertise in political economy: the interface between institutions of political power and economic growth. In this field, Claude has extensively worked on the issues of state capacity, fragility and their implication for the economy and business.
Finally, Claude has been committed to solid political, economic and strategy research throughout his career, publishing extensively either in my personal capacity or through Eunomix. He started his career in teaching, first as a substitute teacher in Reunion Island, then as a lecturer at Northern Arizona University.

Sam Chikowore has been involved with the mining industry since 1993, initially supplying mining spares and consumables to the industrial and mining sectors in the Midlands region of Zimbabwe. Sam later worked as a mine supervisor on the family Great Dyke chrome operation for a period spanning over two years, while still maintaining his industrial supplies business. In 1999 Sam started running his own chrome mining operation as a tribute miner. Diminishing profitability in the chrome industry got Exporien looking at other mineral commodities. Exporien currently holds exploration licences for Coal Bed Methane (CBM) gas concessions and is looking to be the trailblazer in a market which will open up as the gas becomes available.

Steven Curtis is a Chartered Accountant with over 35 years of experience and has held a number of senior financial positions in the manufacturing industry.  Before joining Caledonia in April 2006, he was Director Finance and Supply Chain for Avery Dennison SA and, prior to this, Financial Director and then Managing Director of Jackstadt GmbH South African operation. Steven is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and graduated from the University of Cape Town. Steven was appointed Vice-President Finance and Chief Financial Officer in April 2006 and served in the position until December 2014 when he was appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer.

As Unki Mines (Private) Limited’s CFO, Colin Chibafa does more than just balance the books; he is also responsible for the management of the company’s key external relations with government. This has entailed negotiating and securing the company’s mining licence, sale contracts and funding agreements. A key learning to date has been that doing business in Zimbabwe is not for the faint hearted or the impatient. Colin is a Chartered Accountant and has been with Anglo American since 2001. He has held various roles in Finance, Business Development and Corporate Finance.  To keep his sanity from the number crunching and his two teenage children, Colin has recently taken up photography.

Sandra started her career as an academic, lecturing company and tax law at the University of the Free State, before joining Johannesburg Law Firm Brink Cohen le Roux & Roodt. It was here that she became involved in the South African mining industry, working first on the labour side of the business, before moving on to the corporate and commercial end of practice. Sandra has been with Standard Bank for just over ten years and focuses exclusively on African corporate finance transactions in mining and metals.

Otsile Matlou is ENSafrica’s Chief Operating Officer, Practice Integration. He is also a Director and Head of the firm’s natural resources and environment department. As COO, Practice Integration, Otsile ensures the seamless delivery of effective solutions for clients across the continent. As Head of the firm’s natural resources and environment department, Otsile’s expertise covers the circle of mining – from exploration, mining and beneficiation to downscaling and closure. His experience ranges from start-up exploration projects to well-established mining projects, and he acts for a wide range of mining companies in all mineral commodity sectors, including the base and precious metals, coal, rare earths, sand and diamonds sectors.  Otsile’s expertise includes advising on mining aspects of equity and asset acquisitions, disposals and corporate restructuring, and black economic empowerment transactions, as well as on distressed mining assets and on royalties in the mining sector. His experience further includes all aspects of regulatory work in the mining and petroleum (upstream) industries, for listed and unlisted senior, mid‑tier and junior companies, as well as for financial institutions with regards to resource-finance projects. Otsile has done mining title and transactional work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. He has also advised on joint ventures in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe and Zambia. In addition, he has advised the Uganda Chamber of Mines in relation to the Ugandan mineral regulatory framework. Otsile is an instructor for the Black Lawyers Association and is a member of the Energy, Environment, Natural Resources and Infrastructure Law section of the International Bar Association. He is also an instructor at the International Law Institute – African Centre for Legal Excellence, where he has trained senior government negotiators and regulators from various African countries in regards to mining contracts, concessions and disputes. Otsile is regularly invited to present papers at conferences and seminars in the field of mining law, and he is widely published.

Richard is a seasoned financial services and mining executive with over 20 years’ work experience in African and emerging markets. After graduation, he spent several years working in the mining industry for Anglo American Corporation in South Africa and Mali, before switching to finance. His banking career included time with Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse in the UK and Australia. He then joined Standard Bank, with a specific focus on building the investment banking business across Sub-Saharan Africa. Based in Johannesburg and Mauritius, he built and led a business division which provided senior debt, mezzanine debt and equity investments in the retail, commercial, residential and leisure property sectors. He was also involved in debt capital market, project finance, leveraged finance and advisory transactions across the region. When he left the bank, he joined a private equity business in Mauritius which focused on regional equity and mezzanine investments. He has also co-managed and launched an African mezzanine debt fund, which he managed for 2 years before focusing on other activities. One of his major deals was leading and managing his private equity firm’s investment into a diversified Zimbabwean mining company for 18 months. During this time, he focused on other business investments in Zimbabwe in the mortgage finance and property development areas. Richard previously managed a coal fines processing plant in South Africa (KZN), currently chairs a listed mining technology firm on the JSE, and has several mining investments in South Africa and Namibia. He is a founding partner of Mangwana Capital, an investment advisory firm, which recently launched the Mangwana Opportunities Fund, a private equity fund focusing largely on agricultural and mining investments in Zimbabwe. Richard holds a Chemical Engineering degree (University of Cape Town, 1st Class Honours), a B.Comm degree (University of South Africa) and Executive MBA (University of Sydney/NSW).

Giles is an experienced Investment Banker and currently works as Co-Head of Rothschild & Co in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has previously worked for Rothschild & Co in London and Deutsche Bank in Johannesburg. He has advised on a wide range of different transactions in a number of sectors, covering M&A, ECM and DCM. Giles has also been a successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist, founding TEIM Ventures and establishing a number of companies in the SA telecommunications and technology sectors, raising capital from E Oppenheimer & Sons and Mark Shuttleworth.

Giles originally trained as a Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand in London and has a Bachelor of Business Science degree from the University of Cape Town. He has strong interpersonal skills and considerable experience in corporate strategic advice, corporate finance and teambuilding. He has a rare combination of having worked in investment banking in London and South Africa, as well as having worked within the South African SME industry where he established teams capable of building and developing successful businesses.

Bhekinkosi (Bheki) is the CEO of RioZim Limited. He is an alumni of the Harvard Business School after having successfully completed its Advanced Management Programme (AMP) in Boston Massachusetts. He is a registered Chartered Accountant both in Zimbabwe and South Africa and possesses a strong business and leadership record spanning over twenty years. At RioZim, he was instrumental in spearheading the implementation of the Group’s expansion strategy which resulted in the Group’s number of operating gold mines growing from one in 2012 to three by 2017 and gold production increasing by more than three fold. Furthermore, Bheki played a key role in restructuring the Group’s debt which significantly improved the Company’s liquidity, capital structure and operational efficiency. He has vast experience in the areas of finance, operations and strategic planning and has served on various Boards. Currently, he serves on the Boards of RioZim Limited and its various subsidiaries and associates, including Murowa Diamonds (Private) Limited.

Paul has more than 25 years’ experience in mineral exploration and evaluation in Zimbabwe and the sub-Saharan region and has worked on projects involving precious, base, industrial and energy minerals (gold, platinum, chrome, coal, coal bed methane, tantalite, magnesite, manganese, iron ore, diamonds and emeralds, amongst others). Paul has held executive positions of increasing responsibility including General Manager Exploration-Metallon Gold, non-executive director of the Hwange Colliery Company, Executive Director, Falcon Gold, is a current member of the Zimbabwe Mining Affairs Board and Chamber of Mines Zimbabwe Executive Committee and sits on the boards of a number of public and private companies in Zimbabwe and abroad. He is an Associate Member of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) and is an Executive Director and shareholder of Stonestar Investments, the owners of Dinhidza Vermiculite mine. Paul has held senior Exploration Geologist and management positions in Rio Tinto, Trillion Resources of Canada and Delta Gold of Australia.