William (Bill) Howald is a successful entrepreneur who founded several public companies as well as led the exploration division of a major mining company. He has extensive experience building effective exploration teams and delivering quality resources. As an executive, Mr. Howald provided strategic vision, planning, and implementation of many values creating programs for junior and senior gold producers. Most recently, he led the acquisition, build out and start-up of the Florida Canyon mine in west-central Nevada. The mine achieved commercial production within 18 months of being acquired. To date, Bill has raised approximately $300 million in project financing for properties in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Dominican Republic, and Nevada.
Prior to creating junior mining companies, he was General Manager of Exploration, the United States and Latin America, for Placer Dome Inc. During his tenure at Placer Dome, Mr. Howald was an integral part of the teams that delivered over 100Mozs of gold resources to the Placer portfolio. Several of these resources, including Turquoise Ridge, Pipeline, Pueblo Viejo, are now mines. While there, he also oversaw the last systematic drill campaign done on Silver Cloud. Mr. Howald was born and educated in Butte, Montana, the “Richest Hill on Earth” and has over 34 years in the international exploration and mining industry gained primarily in the Western US, Mexico, and Central and South America. He is a Certified Professional Geologist and a Qualified Person as defined by NI43-101.
Prior to joining Blackrock as President & CEO in 2019, Andrew Pollard had established himself as a sought-after management consultant within the mining industry. Mr. Pollard founded the Mining Recruitment Group Ltd (MRG) in 2006 and has amassed a “Who’s Who” network in the mining & finance world, leveraging his personal relationships to help shape what have become some of the most prominent and successful resource companies. In a sector where management is crucial, he has served as a trusted advisor to exploration companies and producers ranging in size from seed round through to over $100 billion in market capitalization.
Tony Wood currently serves as Chief Financial Officer of Aurania Resources Inc. Mr. Wood’s executive experience includes oversight of finance and operations of various publicly-traded exploration, development, and production staged resource companies. Over the last 20 years, he has successfully completed close to $1billion in financing and M&A transactions in the mining industry. Mr. Wood has a proven record of success with strategic planning, organizational development, and company transformations. He has been instrumental in achieving performance and value growth across diverse commodities, countries and market conditions.
Mr. Wood is an honours graduate, Management Sciences (Marketing) B.Sc. from the University of Lancaster, U.K., and a qualified Chartered Accountant in the UK and Canada.
David Laing is a mining engineer with 40 years of experience in the industry. He was formerly the COO of Equinox Gold Corp., operating gold projects in Brazil and California, COO of True Gold Mining Inc. which developed a gold heap leaching operation in Burkina Faso, and COO and EVP of Quintana Resources Capital, a base metals streaming company. David was also one of the founding executives of Endeavour Mining Corp., a gold producer operating in West Africa. Prior to these recent roles, David held senior positions in mining investment banking and debt advisory services at Endeavour Financial, Standard Bank in New York, and provided technical consulting services at MRDI in California, the Refugio Project at Bema Gold Corp., and various roles at Billiton with operations in Peru, South Africa, and northern Chile.
Mr. Laing currently serves as Independent Chair of both Fortuna Mining Corp and Arizona Sonoran Copper Company. He also serves as an advisor to Endeavour Financial.
Mr. Peregoodoff has over 30 years of resource industry experience, focused on greenfield and brownfield exploration and resource development. Mr. Peregoodoff is currently an independent director of MAG Silver Corp. and American West Metals Limited, and formerly served as an independent director of Pretium Resources Inc. He served as the President, Chief Executive Officer and a director of Apollo Silver Corp. (“Apollo”) from May 2021 to June 2024. Prior to his role at Apollo, Mr. Peregoodoff was President and Chief Executive Officer of Peregrine Diamonds Ltd., where he led the company from the resource development phase and initial engineering through to the eventual sale to DeBeers Canada in 2018. Prior to that, Mr. Peregoodoff spent 18 years in several positions with the mining multinational BHP, culminating in his role as Vice President of Early Stage Exploration, with global responsibility for all early stage exploration across their commodity groups.
Mr. Peregoodoff holds a BSc. in Geophysics from the University of Calgary.
