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.
Randy Minhas is a Chartered Professional Accountant with extensive finance experience in the technology, manufacturing and resources industries. Mr. Minhas has served as Director, Chief Financial Officer, and Controller for several publicly traded companies since 2011 focusing on forecasting, business development, development of internal controls and complete financial reporting services. In addition to previously serving as CFO of Blackrock, Mr. Minhas also formerly served as Group Controller for Rye Patch Gold Corp., a Nevada gold producer. Prior to joining Rye Patch Gold Corp., Mr. Minhas served as the Financial Reporting and SOX specialist for Golden Queen Mining Co. Ltd., helping take the company from an exploration stage company to a full gold and silver producing company. Mr. Minhas holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Simon Fraser University and completed his Chartered Accountant designation in 2008, while also completing his Chartered Director Certification in 2017. He currently serves as a Director for Clean Seed Capital Group Ltd. and Affinor Growers Inc.
Mr. Vickerman is a seasoned institutional sales and corporate finance professional with 25 years of experience in the financial industry and formerly, Managing Director, Head of UK of Beacon Securities UK and former Managing Director , Head of UK for Edgecrest Capital. Prior to joining Edgecrest Capital UK, Mr. Vickerman was Managing Director, Co-Head of Canadian Equity Sales UK at Canaccord Genuity Corp. Mr. Vickerman also formerly worked at Thomas Weisel Partners Group Inc. where he served as Senior Vice President. Daniel spent over 4 years at a London based Alternative asset manager with over $400 million AUM, trading commodities and FX. Mr. Vickerman has extensive experience working with mineral exploration and development companies, raising over $1bln for private and listed companies.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts, Economics from the University of Western Ontario and currently serves as an Independent Director of Discovery Metals Corp.
Amit Kumar, MSc (Geology), has more than 8 years experience working as a Geologist and Project Manager. He is a young enthusiastic and highly-organized professional with proven corporate management skills and initiative. As a project manager; he had successfully organized and supervised two drilling programs for the company in British Columbia (2009- 2011). He was responsible for project initiation, planning, execution, delivery, and close out.