Our Board
Directors
Ian Jeffrey Gandel
- LLB, BEc, FCPA, FAICD
Appointed Director 24 July 2006.
Mr Gandel is a successful Melbourne-based businessman with extensive experience in retail management and retail property. He has been a director of the Gandel Retail Trust and has had an involvement in the construction and leasing of Gandel shopping centres. He has previously been involved in the Priceline retail chain and the CEO chain of serviced offices. Through his private investment vehicles, Mr Gandel has been an investor in the mining industry since 1994. Mr Gandel is currently a substantial holder in several publicly listed Australian companies and, through his private investment vehicles, now holds and explores tenements in his own right in Western Australia. Mr Gandel is a non-executive chairman of Australian Strategic Materials Ltd.
Mr Gandel is a member of the Audit, Remuneration and Nomination Committees.
Nic Earner
- BEng (hons)
Appointed Director and Managing Director 1 September 2017.
Mr Earner is a chemical engineer and graduate of University of Queensland with 25 years’ experience in technical and operational optimisation and management, and has held a number of executive roles in mining and processing. Mr Earner joined the Alkane Group as Chief Operations Officer in August 2013, with responsibility for the safe and efficient management of the Company’s operations at Tomingley (Tomingley Gold Operations). Under his supervision, the successful development of TGO transitioned to profitable and efficient operations.
Prior to his appointment as the Group’s Chief Operations Officer in August 2013 he spent four years at Straits Resources Ltd including two years as Executive General Manager – Operations, supervising up to 1,000 employees in open cut and underground gold mines and an underground copper mine. During the eleven years before that he had various roles at Rio Tinto Coal Australia’s Mount Thorley Warkworth coal mine and BHPB/WMC Olympic Dam copper-uranium-gold operations. Mr Earner’s eight years at Olympic Dam included roles managing the Concentrator and Hydromet functions which included substantial milling, leaching and solvent extraction circuits. His other positions included Production Superintendent – Smelting, and Senior Engineer – Process Control, Instrumentation and Communications.
Mr Earner is also a non-executive director of Australian Strategic Materials Ltd.
Ian Chalmers
- MSc, FAusIMM, FAIG, FIMMM, FSEG, MSGA, MGSA, FAICD
Appointed Director 10 June 1986, appointed Managing Director 5 October 2006, and appointed as Technical Director on 1 September 2017.
After almost 11 years as Managing Director, Mr Chalmers stepped down to make way for the appointment of Nic Earner but continues on the Board to provide ongoing technical and commercial knowledge and exploration management.
Mr Chalmers is a geologist and graduate of the Western Australia Institute of Technology (Curtin University) and has a Master of Science degree from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. He has worked in the mining and exploration industry for over 50 years. Ian has a 35-year involvement with Alkane Resources as both Technical Director and Managing Director and has steered the Company through discovery, feasibility, construction and development of gold and gold-copper projects in New South Wales (NSW).
Mr Chalmers has had a 30-year involvement in the rare metal and rare earth industry and he managed the geology, process development and global marketing effort for the Dubbo rare metal and rare earth project in NSW, advancing it to the threshold of development. He provides ongoing technical advice and is currently a Director of the Toronto-based Critical Minerals Institute.
Mr Chalmers is a member of the Nomination Committee.
Anthony Lethlean
- BAppSc (Geology)
Appointed Director 30 May 2002
Mr Lethlean is a geologist with over 10 years’ mining experience, including 4 years underground on the Golden Mile in Kalgoorlie. In later years, he has worked as a resources analyst with various stockbrokers and investment banks including CIBC World Markets. He was a founding director of Helmsec Global Capital Limited which seeded, listed and funded a number of companies in a range of commodities. He retired from the group in 2014. He is also a non-executive director of Alliance Resources Ltd (appointed 15 October 2003).
Mr Lethlean is the senior independent director, Chairman of the Audit and Risk Committees, and a member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committees.
Gavin Smith
- B.Com., MBA, MAICD
Mr Smith is an accomplished senior executive and non-executive director within multinational business environments. He has more than 35 years experience in Information Technology, Business Development, and General Management in a wide range of industries and sectors. Mr Smith has worked for the Bosch group for the past 28 years in Australia and Germany and is the current Chair and President of Robert Bosch Australia. In this role, Mr Smith has led the restructuring and transformation of the local Bosch subsidiary.
Concurrent with this role, he is a non-executive director of the various Bosch subsidiaries, joint ventures, and direct investment companies in Australia and New Zealand. In addition, Mr Smith is the Chair of the Internet of Things Alliance Australia (IoTAA), the peak body for organisations with an interest in the IoT.
Mr Smith is a member of the Audit and Risk Committees, and Chair of the Remuneration and Nomination Committees.
Mr Smith is also a non-executive director of Australian Strategic Materials Ltd.
Joint Company Secretaries
Dennis Wilkins
- B.Bus, ACIS, AICD
Since 1994 Mr Wilkins has been a director of, and involved in the executive management of, several publicly listed resource companies with operations in Australia, PNG, Scandinavia and Africa. From 1995 to 2001 he was the Finance Director of Lynas Corporation Ltd during the period when the Mt Weld Rare Earths project was acquired by the group. He was also founding director and advisor to Atlas Iron Limited at the time of Atlas’ initial public offering in 2006.
Since July 2001 Mr Wilkins has been running DWCorporate Pty Ltd where he advises on the formation of,
and capital raising for, emerging companies in the Australian resources sector.
Julia Beckett
Julia is a corporate governance professional with 20 years of experience in public company management specialisation in mining and exploration. She has vast expertise across ASX listing rules and ASIC compliance, including implementation and administration of corporate governance, initial public offerings and secondary raisings and shareholder relations.
Julia holds a Certificate in Governance Practice and Administration and is an Affiliated Member of the Governance Institute of Australia.