Mr. Mitchell held a number of senior leadership positions at Rio Tinto during his 32-year career, most recently as Head of Business Development. His roles have spanned finance, M&A and strategic business change, including playing leading roles in the transformation of Hamersley into Rio Tinto’s key iron ore business.

Kadiatou Konaté is the Managing Director of Sustainable Mining & Infrastructure Group (SMIG), a purpose-driven organisation designing and implementing innovative approaches for the development and funding of sustainable mining and infrastructure projects in Guinea and West Africa.

Prior to her current role, Ms Konaté held positions as Director of Planning & Business Strategy for the Rio Tinto Minerals Group, leading the business planning and evaluating capital expansion projects.  She was previously Controller and CFO for Rio Tinto Simandou’s Iron Ore Project. Her prior roles include leading risk and compliance teams.

Ms Konaté is a certified public accountant and she holds a master’s degree of accountancy from the University of Oklahoma.

Bronwyn Barnes is a highly respected and experienced resources industry professional with extensive experience in working in Guinea and Mali, and a more than 25-year career successfully leading exploration and mining projects internationally.

With a particular skill set around working collaboratively with Government to achieve development outcomes, her achievements in the resources sector led her to be honoured in 2015 as the recipient of the Outstanding Women in Resources Award in Australia. Ms Barnes was also inducted into the Western Australian Women’s Hall of Fame in 2019 for her services to the resources sector.

Bronwyn Barnes is a highly respected and experienced resources industry professional with extensive experience in working in Guinea and Mali, and a more than 25-year career successfully leading exploration and mining projects internationally.

With a particular skill set around working collaboratively with Government to achieve development outcomes, her achievements in the resources sector led her to be honoured in 2015 as the recipient of the Outstanding Women in Resources Award in Australia. Ms Barnes was also inducted into the Western Australian Women’s Hall of Fame in 2019 for her services to the resources sector.

Shane Kay is a certified practicing accountant and chartered company secretary with 20 years’ experience in corporate accounting, financial management, budgeting, contracts, management, company secretarial responsibilities, reporting and legal compliance including with anti-corruption laws.

After starting his career in Brisbane in accountancy and financial analyst roles, Mr Kay served as Finance Manager for Rio Tinto Plc. on its Simandou Project in Guinea. He joined the Nimba Iron Project in 2012 as Finance Manager, responsible for the functional transition of the Nimba Iron Ore Project from a unit dependent on an owner to a standalone commercial entity across its human resource, IT, financial and governance functions. He was promoted to CFO in 2015, and is responsible for operational and capital budgets, forecasts and reporting, financial and tax reporting, contract management, company secretarial duties, anti-bribery and corruption and information technology.

Mike Glaser is a geologist by training but has assumed various technical, operations and management roles around the globe for the last 25 years.

He worked for much of his career for BHP (Billiton), managing various geological and mine production teams and activities in South Africa and South America. He has worked in greenfield exploration, as a mine manager and on a complex joint venture where he supported HSEC performance, operations management and cost control. Mr Glaser joined the Nimba Project team in 2011 as the Area Manager Technical. He currently serves as the Study Manager, responsible for the completion of technical and engineering studies for the project.

With degrees in cultural anthropology and environmental science, Jamison Suter worked for the Environment Department of the World Bank Group in the mid-1990s, mainly for the newly created Global Environment Facility (GEF).

He then worked for eight years managing environmental conservation programs for the international NGO, Fauna & Flora International (FFI). He focused particularly on West African nations affected by conflict – Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire – and on balancing the perceived need for immediate ‘development’ in contexts of extreme poverty and socio-economic disarray, with longer-term imperatives like sustainability, protection of biological diversity & ecosystem services, and fighting corruption. Since 2006, he has supported exploration-level environmental management, community & external relations, and the environmental and social impact assessment for The Nimba Iron Project. He has been the Nimba Iron Project’s primary point of contact with the public on issues like world heritage, biodiversity, good governance, human rights and sustainable development.

Hadja I. Diallo is the Nimba Iron Project’s Human Resources Manager with over 15 years’ experience in the Guinean mining sector and a practical understanding of Guinean labour laws. She has as well a strong background in management of human resources (HR), recruitment and talent, performance, staff retention, classification and compensation, industrial relations, employee relations, policy interpretation and training.

Before joining the Nimba Iron Project in February 2021, Hadja served as Human Resources Manager for Alliance Mining Commodities Guinee (AMC SA) for the previous three years, from December 2017 to January 2021. Prior to AMC SA, Hadja held several leadership positions in human resources at Guinea Alumina Corporation SA, a subsidiary of Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), where she worked from May 2006 to November 2017, including the position of Senior Human Resources Business Partner at EGA in Dubai, on a secondment contract from 2016 to 2017. Following her graduation in 2003, Hadja operated as a finance controller for Compagnie Shell de Guinée, a petroleum company, from 2004 to 2005.

Hadja first graduated in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in economics from University of Rouen (France). She also holds a master’s degree in international banking and finance from University Le Havre (France) in 2003, and a second master’s degree in HR management from the University of Poitiers (France) in 2013.

Hadja is the President of Guinean Council of Human Resources Professional (COGUIPRO-RH) – a prominent HR organisation on the national level, where she mentors upcoming HR professionals and shares her knowledge and passion for HR.