Board & Management
Members of Board
Graeme Kirke – Chairman and Managing Director
B.Com (UWA), MSDIA
Mr Kirke has more than 25 years experience in capital markets. Mr Kirke is the founding and major shareholder and Managing Director of Kirke Securities Limited, a participant of ASX Limited. He has served on several industry boards and committees. As well as fulfilling the roles of Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Kirke has special responsibility for asset acquisition and strategy.
Dr Paul Robinson – Non-Executive Technical Director
B.Sc. (Hons), Ph.D
Dr Robinson is an independent technical advisor for the oil and gas industry. Dr Robinson is a founder, major shareholder and Principal of Isis Petroleum Consultants – the largest independent petroleum geoscience consultancy in Australia. Over a 25 year career in hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, he has developed a unique combination of geoscience skills including sedimentology, sequence stratigraphy, basin modelling and development geology that have been utilised in numerous projects in SE Asia, India, Australia, PNG, Africa, Europe and New Zealand.
Ross Ashton – Non-Executive Director
B.Sc. Geol (Syd), AusIMM
Mr Ashton has been involved with exploration, financing, and development of international resource projects for 35 years. Most recently he was responsible for acquiring and bringing to production the Chirano gold mine in Ghana as founding Managing Director/Chairman of Red Back Mining Inc.
Key Personnel
Phillip Macleod – Company Secretary
B.Bus
Mr Phillip MacLeod, B.Bus, was appointed to the position of company secretary in March 2006. Mr MacLeod has over 20 years commercial experience and has held the position of company secretary with listed public companies since 1995.
Ildiko Wowesny – Chief Financial Officer
B.Bus
Ms Wowesny was born, raised and educated in the former Czechoslovakia. She is fluent in Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Russian, German and Polish. From 1993-97 she worked in the Corporate Finance division of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu in Perth, Australia where her responsibilities included financial accounting, administration, and company secretarial matters for a number of listed resource companies. Ildiko was also involved in prospectus preparation, compliance work, capital raisings, due diligence, audit and mergers and acquisition.
Gerald Johnson – Project Manager Central Europe
BSc (Hons), AusIMM
Mr Johnson has over 30 years experience as a geologist ranging from grass-roots exploration through to the assessment of mineral deposits to mine geology. He has coordinated exploration and evaluation programs for a range of mineral resources in geographically as well as geologically diverse environments. From 1980, Gerald operated as a consultant providing technical services and specialist advice mainly to exploration and mining companies and financial institutions. More recently, he applied his skills and expertise to the formation and successful growth of two exploration companies.
Karamo N.M. Sonko – Project Manager Africa
BA, M. Phil., Ph.D
Mr Sonko is Vice President of Tasiast (Mauritania) Ltd., a subsidiary of Red Back Mining Inc. (a Lundin Group Company). He is also Adviser, Business Development and Strategy (Africa) for the Lundin Group, and Special Adviser to the Lundin for Africa Foundation. Before his transfer to Mauritania in September 2007, he was Director Business Development & Strategy, Champion Industrial Minerals Inc. He has advised many multinational companies on their African investment strategies, worked for a number of international institutions, including the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, and taught at four universities in the United States and France. He has written and published extensively on Africa.
