Sean Cleary
CEO & Director
Mr. Cleary co-founded BlackRock Metals in 2008 and has significant experience in financing mining projects, mergers and acquisitions, corporate financing and scaling up companies. He was Executive Chairman & Head of Corporate Development of Groupworks Financial Corp., (now People Corporation), Senior Vice-President of Quest Capital (now Sprott Resource Corp.) and co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of Caratax Management Ltd., a Canadian mining fund. He also served as director of private and public companies. He holds an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts Degree (History) from the University of Western Ontario.
Dan Nir
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Nir has held various corporate development and investment banking positions in Toronto and New York and has advised on numerous mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance transactions. Prior to joining BlackRock Metals, he worked in the investment banking groups of Jefferies & Company, CIBC World Markets and Wellington West Capital Markets where he was responsible for structuring, negotiating and executing mergers and acquisitions mandates as well as equity and debt capital markets transactions. He holds an Honours in Business Administration and an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.
Scott Hicks
EVP Corporate Development & Director
Mr. Hicks is a former investment banker working with RBC Capital Markets and BMO Capital Markets on their respective mining teams. He also served as VP Corporate Development and Communications of Anfield Gold Corp., which was acquired to create Equinox Gold Corp and Luminex Resources Corp., which was acquired by Adventus Mining Corp. He currently serves as the EVP Corporate Development and Director of Strategic Resources Inc., VP Corporate Development and Communications of Lumina Gold Corp. and as a Director of Fuerte Metals. Over the last two decades, he has worked on a variety of equity, debt and advisory assignments while working in Canada and Australia. Mr. Hicks holds a Bachelor of Commerce with Honours from the University of British Columbia.
Danie Dutton
VP Technical Services & Metallurgical Products and Processes
Mr. Dutton has been working with BlackRock Metals since 2016 in the company’s technical services group. He has 25 years of experience in the iron, steel, titanium, alloys and vanadium industry. Previously, he worked for Anglo America at Highveld Steel and Vanadium in South Africa and at Vanchem Vanadium Products in the Vanadium Chemical, Oxides & FeV Operations, Vanadium Market Development, Vanadium Mine Development, R&D and Analytical Services. In 2011, he founded Symphony Trade & Investments where he marketed commodities such as vanadium chemicals, alumina, iron ore, coal, chrome concentrates, manganese ores where he developed Iron, Steel and Vanadium projects including vanadium battery electrolyte manufacturing and battery system installations for the South African telecommunication industry. Originally based in South Africa where he studied Metallurgical Engineering (Extractive) and Chemical Engineering, Mr. Dutton emigrated to Montreal Canada in 2019.
Alexandre Meterissian
VP ESG & Communications
Mr. Meterissian has been a Managing Director at Teneo since 2020 which he joined via the acquisition of HATLEY Strategy Advisors where he was a Partner and has been working with BlackRock since 2014. He has been seconded to BlackRock since 2019 to lead its governmental affairs and communications functions. Before joining Teneo, Alexandre worked at various ministerial offices in Ottawa, most notably for the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Immigration. He contributed to the development of foreign policy initiatives and was responsible for relations with cultural communities in the Greater Montreal Area and for communicating numerous government policies. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science, economics and philosophy from McGill University as well as a Master’s degree (M.Sc.) in Strategy from HEC Montréal.
Jukka Pitkäjärvi
VP Finland Operations
Mr. Pitkäjärvi has worked for more than 30 years in the international mining and metallurgical industry. Most recently he was CEO of Ferrovan Oy, a private company developing the Mustavaara project and other vanadium projects in Finland. Mr. Pitkäjärvi holds a M.Sc in Geology and Mineralogy from University of Oulu (Finland), Business Engineering Diploma from Oulu Polytechnical University (Finland) and Business Management Diploma from POHTO - Institute for Management and Technological Training (Finland).
Michael Lam
VP Finance
Mr. Lam, CPA , has over 25 years of experience in accounting and finance. Previously, he worked in senior managerial roles at global accounting firms such as Deloitte & Touche LLP and KPMG and has acted as director and/or chief financial officer and VP Finance for numerous public companies in Canada.
Victor Flores
Director
Mr. Flores joined Orion in 2019. Prior to Orion, Mr. Flores was a gold mining sector consultant, having worked on projects for both senior gold companies and investment advisors. From 2009 to 2018 he was a partner at Paulson & Co., a leading NY-based hedge fund, where he was one of the Partners responsible for the firm’s gold investments. From 1998 to 2009 he was a Managing Director and Senior Mining Analyst at HSBC, where he was responsible for the firm’s global gold mining research product. Mr. Flores started his career at United Services Advisors (now US Global Investors), a Texas-based investment management company known for its expertise in natural resources and precious metals, initially working as a sector analyst but later taking on the role of Portfolio Manager and Chief Investment Officer. Mr. Flores earned both his Bachelor’s degree in Geological Sciences and his Master’s degree in Energy and Mineral Resources from the University of Texas at Austin. He has been a CFA charter holder since 1992.
Amyot Choquette
Director
Senior Director, Investments, at Ressources Québec, a division of Investissement Québec that offers financial products for the mining, forest products and energy industries, since 2012. Prior to that, he held several positions from 2000 to 2011 at the Société Générale de Financement du Québec, where he carried out investments and financings in the mining and forest products industries. He also worked at the Fonds régional de Solidarité FTQ in the City of Québec from 1996 to 2000. Prior to his work in the investment and financing industry, he worked at Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton. Mr. Choquette is a graduate of Université Laval (B.A.A. – 1991) and has been a CPA CA since 1993.
Michael Moore
Director
British Columbia registered professional geologist with a B.Sc. geology degree (1989) from Carleton University (Ottawa ON). He is a third generation miner with +25 years of field work and project management experience working on (i) a wide range of gold-copper deposit types in North and South America, (ii) Achaean nickel-PGM deposits in Nunavut, (iii) manto-type carbonate replacement base metals, (iv) low sulphidation epithermal gold systems in Mexico, (v) uranium and tungsten mineralization in various Canadian provinces and (vi) intrusion-related gold and copper-gold systems in northwest Canada.
Mark Serdan
Director
Mr. Serdan has over 20 years’ experience working in the capital markets industry where he specialized in evaluating resource companies. Mr. Serdan is currently the CFO of Aurion Resources, a TSXV public company (TSX-V:AU). Prior to becoming CFO at Aurion, Mr. Serdan was a Portfolio Manager for approximately 15 years, at BMO Asset Management (7 years) and UBS Global Asset Management (8 years), where he was responsible for making investments in the resource sector and for managing the firm’s resource funds. Mr. Serdan also previously worked 5 years at BMO Nesbitt Burns as an Investment Banker and a Research Associate. Mr. Serdan has an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree and holds the Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and Chartered Accountant (CA) designations.
Simon Wandke
Senior Advisor
Most recently, Mr. Wandke was Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of ArcelorMittal Mining, the world’s leading steel company with the fifth largest iron ore business globally. During his tenure, Mr. Wandke played a key role in helping to drive the mining division forward to the next stage of its development as one of the largest global producers of iron ore, coking coal and other minerals. Mr. Wandke has over 40 years’ experience in the mining and minerals industry, holding senior management, strategy and commercial positions internationally with a particular focus on the development of greenfield and brownfield projects, designing and implementing major change and effective commercial strategies, strategic marketing, risk management and ESG.