About Us

James Crombie graduated from the Royal School of Mines, London, in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in mining engineering, having been awarded the Anglo American scholarship. Mr. Crombie held various positions with DeBeers Consolidated Mines and the Anglo American Corporation in South Africa and Angola between 1980 and 1986. He spent the following 13 years as a mining analyst and investment banker with Shepards, Merrill Lynch, James Capel & Co. and finally with Yorkton Securities.

Mr. Crombie has over 20 years serving as management and/or board member to several public mining companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange or the TSXV in Canada, in Australia and in the United Kingdom. Mr. Crombie was Vice President, Corporate Development of Hope Bay from 1999 to 2002, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ariane Gold Corp. from 2002 to 2003, President, CEO and Director of Palmarejo until the merger with Coeur d’Alene Mines Corporation in 2007, President, CEO and Director of Avala Resources Ltd., Dunav Resources Ltd. and Reunion Gold Corporation, and Director of Torex Gold Resources Inc. and Ariane Silver Corporation.

Mr. Crombie is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Odyssey Resources Limited, a Canadian company trading on the NEX trading board of the TSXV and a non-executive director of Nickel Mines Limited, an Australian listed company.

Mr. Sean Hasson commenced working on the West Australian gold mines when he was nineteen years of age and since then has had extensive experience in exploration and project development management, quality control program management and corporate development activities. Sean has previously worked in both exploration and mining capacities on Archean greenstone gold and base metal projects in Western Australia, northern Canada and Finland and has had extensive exposure to epithermal and porphyry environments in South America, the Philippines and more recently in the Western Tethyan belt of Eastern Europe where he has been involved in the discovery and definition of 7.2Mozs Au and 1.4Mt Cu (NI 43-101) for various projects over the last twenty years. Sean graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Science (Geology Major). Sean resides in Sofia, Bulgaria and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG), and a qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101.

Mr. Jeff Pennock has over 35 years of business experiences in multiple industries with experience in Canada, Europe and Africa. He has earned both Canadian and US Accounting designations. Mr. Pennock has approximately 20 years of leadership success with various companies in the mining and exploration sector. Since 2005 until 2020, Mr. Pennock has worked in the role of a corporate controller, finance director and VP Administration for Dundee Previous Metals.

Mr Danko Zhelev has extensive exploration and project development experience within Bulgaria and the Balkan region. Danko was part of the team that initially discovered the Ada Tepe gold deposit (Krumovgrad) during 2000 and subsequently was involved with all aspects of resource development, feasibility and permitting of the project in his former position as Exploration Manager, Bulgaria for Dundee Precious Metals.

Demetris is a Cypriot, who graduated from Charles University of Prague with a first-class MSc (Hons) degree in Geology in 1971, whilst he completed a PhD at the same University in 1973.

Demetris worked for 25 years as an exploration geologist and for 5 years as Director of Public and International Relations at the Greek Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration (IGME). He was the person in charge of the teams that discovered the Molaoi VMS deposit, Aisimi mixed sulphides prospect, the strata-bound mineralisation at Marlou of Thassos island and other resources of base and precious metals in Greece. He represented IGME in various bodies of the European Union and EuroGeoSurveys.

From 1998 to 2016, Demetris held various managerial positions at Thrace Minerals Plc, EMED Mining Plc, EMED Slovakia Ltd and Atalaya Mining Plc. Demetris was in charge of the companies that discovered the Sappes Gold Deposit in Greece and the Biely Vrch Gold Deposit in Slovakia. Furthermore, he was the co-ordinator of the technical teams that prepared the final reports, which led to the reopening of the Rio Tinto mine in Andalusia. Rio Tinto mine’s production in 2021 exceeded 56,000 tons of copper.

Presently, he is an advisor to Eastern Resources Plc on exploration projects in the Slovak Republic and Director at the Cypriot Company Venus Minerals Plc.

Demetris was Thrace Minerals’ and EMED Mining’s representative in EuroMines. From 2011 to 2014 he was first the Vice-chairman and then the Chairman of Euromines’ Communication Committee.

Demetris has published more than 200 articles in scientific journals, newspapers and special publications.

Andrew has 15 years of corporate secretarial, administrative, financial, and operational experience at a variety of small businesses. He has served as Corporate Affairs Manager for junior mineral exploration companies, Logistics Manager for a mineral exploration consulting firm, and as a Sales Administrator and Controller at a yacht dealership. Andrew joined DSA Corporate Services in 2017, and as a Senior Account Executive he provides Corporate Secretarial consulting services for 25 small to mid cap issuers on the TSX, TSX-V, and CSE. Andrew has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Dalhousie University and is a student-member of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA).

Dr Mihaela Maria Barnes earned her Ph.D. in International Law from the Graduate Instituteof International and Development Studies, Geneva. She also holds an LL.M. in Internationaland European Law (specialization: International Trade and Investment Law) from theUniversity of Amsterdam as well as undergraduate degrees, legal qualifications andexperience in both common law and civil law. Dr Barnes was a Visiting Fellow at theLauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge and a member oftheCoordinating Committee of the European Society of International Law Interest Group onBusiness and Human Rights. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals onvarious topics of international law, business and human rights and sustainability. A revisedversion of her Ph.D. dissertation (State-Owned Entities and Human Rights: The Role ofInternational Law) was published by Cambridge University Press in November 2021. Dr Barneshas acted as a consultant on matters of corporate governance, business and human rights,sustainability and international law.

Ms. Vanessa Cook is a CPA, CA with over 22 years of business experience in accounting and finance. Ms. Cook graduated from Dalhousie University with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. Since then, she has worked with a variety of public and private companies in the mining, insurance, risk consulting, and technology industries, which have included the roles of Controller, Director of Finance, and Vice President of Finance. Ms. Cook spent nine years combined in financial reporting at Dundee Precious Metals and Corsa Coal. She is currently the Vice President of Finance at PomeGran Inc., a private broadband internet service provider.

Mr. Colin Jones has over 40 years’ experience as a mining, exploration and consulting geologist.  He is experienced in a number of different geological environments and has worked on all continents on producing mines, as part of feasibility teams and as an explorationist. Colin has managed large exploration and due diligence projects, and has undertaken numerous bankable technical audits, technical valuations, independent expert reports and due diligence studies worldwide, most of which were on behalf of major international resource financing institutions and banks.  Colin resides in New Zealand and acts as Technical Adviser to a number of other resource investment groups, primarily Orimco Pty. Ltd. in Perth.  Colin was formerly Principal and Manager Audits with RSG Global based in Perth. More recently Colin was Executive Vice President with Dundee Resources Ltd. based in Toronto.

Mr. Laurie Marsland is a graduate of the Western Australia Institute of Technology where he completed a Bachelor of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering and attended the Stanford Sloan Fellows Program at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business where he completed a Master of Science in Management degree.  Mr. Marsland is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia, a Chartered Professional Engineer and has forty years of diverse international experience in mining project evaluation, development, and operations. He has undertaken various roles including Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Vice President Project Development and Director. He relocated to Sofia, Bulgaria where in 2004 he assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer for Dundee Precious Metals.

James Crombie graduated from the Royal School of Mines, London, in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in mining engineering, having been awarded the Anglo American scholarship. Mr. Crombie held various positions with DeBeers Consolidated Mines and the Anglo American Corporation in South Africa and Angola between 1980 and 1986. He spent the following 13 years as a mining analyst and investment banker with Shepards, Merrill Lynch, James Capel & Co. and finally with Yorkton Securities.

Mr. Crombie has over 20 years serving as management and/or board member to several public mining companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange or the TSXV in Canada, in Australia and in the United Kingdom. Mr. Crombie was Vice President, Corporate Development of Hope Bay from 1999 to 2002, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ariane Gold Corp. from 2002 to 2003, President, CEO and Director of Palmarejo until the merger with Coeur d’Alene Mines Corporation in 2007, President, CEO and Director of Avala Resources Ltd., Dunav Resources Ltd. and Reunion Gold Corporation, and Director of Torex Gold Resources Inc. and Ariane Silver Corporation.

Mr. Crombie is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Odyssey Resources Limited, a Canadian company trading on the NEX trading board of the TSXV and a non-executive director of Nickel Mines Limited, an Australian listed company.

Mr. Sean Hasson commenced working on the West Australian gold mines when he was nineteen years of age and since then has had extensive experience in exploration and project development management, quality control program management and corporate development activities. Sean has previously worked in both exploration and mining capacities on Archean greenstone gold and base metal projects in Western Australia, northern Canada and Finland and has had extensive exposure to epithermal and porphyry environments in South America, the Philippines and more recently in the Western Tethyan belt of Eastern Europe where he has been involved in the discovery and definition of 7.2Mozs Au and 1.4Mt Cu (NI 43-101) for various projects over the last twenty years. Sean graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Science (Geology Major). Sean resides in Sofia, Bulgaria and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG), and a qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101.

Brett is widely regarded in the exploration and mining industry for his application of applied structural geology to numerous commodity types and mineral deposit styles. The approach Brett has brought to understanding mineralising environments globally is a product of the integration of modern structural geology and techniques married with several decades of applied research.

Brett received a structural geology PhD (1992) from James Cook University. This was followed by six years of applied structural geological postgraduate research before returning to the minerals industry in 1998. Here he held various technical and senior managerial roles at consultancy groups and in mining and exploration companies prior to running his own international geology consultancy. Brett currently holds an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow position at James Cook University.

Mr. Knaak received a MSc in geology from the RWTH Aachen University (1993) and a MSc in Economic Geology from the Key Centre for Strategic Mineral Deposits at the University of Western Australia (1998). During the period from 1994 to 1999, Mr. Knaak worked as an exploration geologist for Aurifex Mining NL, Poseidon Gold Ltd and Great Central Mines NL in Western Australia and for Equinox Resources NL and Geosurveys Australia Pty Ltd in South Australia and Zambia. In 2008, Mr. Knaak joined Dundee Precious Metals as the Principal Consulting Geologist, working in Serbia, Bulgaria and Armenia on porphyry copper, gold and molybdenum projects as well as sediment-hosted gold exploration projects. Subsequently, he worked for state geological surveys in Germany and as a consultant to the mining industry in Serbia and Bulgaria with emphasis on structural aspects of sediment-hosted gold and high- and low-sulfidation epithermal precious metal exploration projects.

Mr. Knaak is an internationally experienced consulting geologist specialising in mineral exploration, prospect and mine evaluation, geological mapping and structural interpretation. He has initiated, implemented, and managed numerous cross-disciplinary mapping campaigns on early-stage to resource definition stage precious and base metal exploration projects. He has over twenty-eight years of hands-on field-based and research experience in exploration and mining geology relating to exploration/development project management, project generation, exploration geochemistry, project scheduling and budgeting, together with quality control program management.

Richard Tosdal received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, a M.Sc. from Queen’s University and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara.  He worked for the U.S. Geological Survey (1978 to 1999) and was the Director of the Mineral Deposit Research Unit at the University of British Columbia (1999 through 2008).  He currently consults to the minerals industry on aspects regarding the metallogenic evolution of plate margins, the structural controls on ore deposition, and evolution of a range of hydrothermal deposits. He serves on technical advisory boards to junior mining companies, is active in facilitating industry designed R&D projects and retains an adjunct appointment at the University of British Columbia.

Joe Crummy is holder of a BSc in Applied Geology from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland and a PhD in gold metallogeny from Glasgow University, Scotland. He has over 25 years’ experience in mineral exploration worldwide and extensive experience within Central and Eastern Europe. Joe currently combines regional, early-stage exploration work together with Acid Rock Drainage assessment and modelling on feasibility studies and mine development projects, again worldwide but mainly in the Balkans. Joe resides in Sofia, Bulgaria.