Advisory Council

Pala has created an Advisory Council comprised of seasoned industry leaders to provide strategic guidance and counsel to Pala's expanding portfolio of opportunities. The Advisory Council augments Pala's extensive in-house expertise and provides a deep pool of industry experience to leverage in Pala's investing activities.


James Askew
 
Mr. Askew is a seasoned executive and mining engineer with over 35 years of international mining and business experience.  Mr. Askew has accumulated an impressive record of achievements by leading numerous mining service and mining companies, assembling and leveraging management teams and enhancing long-term shareholder value. 
 
Mr. Askew began his career in the Australian mining sector as a mining engineer in underground operations and research.  He then founded a series of mining service groups, an international consultancy, an Australian underground mining contractor and a geotechnical instrument group. All these enterprises were successful and both the consulting group and instrument business remain in business today. For a period, he was also a director of Datamine Ltd.
 
Mr. Askew subsequently founded a public, diversified mining group, Golden Shamrock Mines, pioneering gold mining in Ghana and Guinea, plus operating copper and iron ore mines in Australia and Spain, an Australian copper chemicals company, a ground support business plus majority ownership of what was initially a drilling contractor, Ausdrill Ltd. The latter company was ultimately independently listed on the ASX.  Golden Shamrock Mines merged with Ashanti Goldfields in 1996.
 
He subsequently was partner in a US resources investment fund and was Chairman/CEO of a series of listed resource companies, primarily listed in North America or Australia, where restructuring and/or strategic redirection was required.
 
Mr. Askew is currently a director of Ausdrill Ltd., an ASX-listed mining contractor, drilling services and mining consumables provider; Golden Star Resources Inc., an AMEX/TSX-listed gold producer; non-executive chairman of Sino Gold Ltd., an ASX-listed gold exploration and production company that announced a business combination with TSX-listed Eldorado Gold Corporation on 27 August 2009; Asia Mineral Resources, a TSX-listed mineral development and exploration company; and executive chairman of OceanaGold Corp., an ASX-listed gold mining and exploration company.

Mr. Askew holds a Bachelor of Mining Engineering (Honours) and a Masters Degree in Engineering Science from Melbourne University.
 


Timothy Haddon

Mr. Haddon is a seasoned mining engineer with over 35 years of international mining and business experience. Mr. Haddon was formerly president and chief executive officer of Archangel Diamond Corporation from 1997 to 2002, a Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) mining and diamond development company. While at Archangel, Mr. Haddon secured the company’s ownership of a diamond asset with over $5.2 billion of diamond reserves and negotiated the acquisition of a controlling stake in Archangel by DeBeers. He was also a founder and chief executive officer of First Dynasty Mines from 1994 to 1997, a TSX-listed mining and development company, whose market capitalization grew from $56 million to over $300 million in three years.

Previously, Mr. Haddon was the chief executive officer of Amax Gold Inc. from 1989 to 1993, a global mining company with operations in, Australia, Southeast Asia and North and South America which was ultimately acquired by Kinross Gold Corporation in 1998. During his tenure with Amax Gold, Mr. Haddon directly contributed to the development and growth of the company from a single site operator into a major international gold mining company. He was principally responsible for the IPO of Amax Gold Inc. on the NYSE, which saw the company transform from a private company with book value assets of $100 million to a public company with a market capitalization in excess of $1 billion. He also successfully merged Amax Gold with its controlling shareholder, forming Cyprus Amax Minerals in 1993.

Mr. Haddon also spent six years working for Texasgulf (1970 - 1976) as a mining engineer with projects in Australia and North America.

Mr. Haddon is currently president and chief executive officer of International Natural Resource Management Co., a sophisticated mining industry consulting service provider and investor.

Mr. Haddon is chairman of the board of directors of Anatolia Minerals Development Limited, a Canadian-listed company with significant gold exploration and early stage production operations in Turkey. In addition Mr. Haddon is a Director of Thompson Creek Metals Inc, a Canadian and NYSE listed Molybdenum producer with mines in the USA and Canada, and a Director of International Tower Hill Mines, a Canadian listed gold exploration company focused in Alaska and Nevada.

Mr. Haddon is a graduate of the Colorado School of Mines.


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Christopher Thompson

With over 38 years of experience in the mining and natural resources sector, Mr. Thompson has considerable financial, operational and management experience. Mr. Thompson was formerly the chairman (1998 – 2005) and chief executive officer (1998- 2002) of Gold Fields Ltd., a major international gold producer with over 50,000 employees and operations on five continents and listed. Under the leadership of Mr. Thompson, Gold Fields grew from a company with a market capitalization of $1 billion to the world’s most profitable gold company, with a market capitalization of over $8 billion, reserves and resources of over 280 million ounces and annual production of 4.2 million ounces.

Mr. Thompson was also the chairman of the World Gold Council (WGC) from 2002 to 2005, the gold industry knowledge and marketing organization, where he drove the reorganization of the WGC and was a driving force behind the listing of gold ETFs on the New York Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange and other exchanges.

In addition to his significant experience as a senior executive in the mining industry, Mr. Thompson also has over 20 years of investing and management experience in the mining and natural resources sector. He founded and was chief executive officer of the international investment company, Castle Group Inc, formerly Fulcrum Management, a private subsidiary of the Eaton Vance Corporation. The Castle Group made focused private equity investments in several international gold mining projects and, through its investments, assisted in the development of many new mines.

Mr. Thompson is currently a director of Teck Cominco, a major Canadian zinc, copper and coal producer with mining operations or exploration activities throughout the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and Africa.  He is also a director of Golden Star Resources Ltd., a Canadian gold producer with producing mines and exploration properties in West Africa. Additionally, he is chairman of Ram Power Corp., a Canadian-listed renewable energy company focused on geothermal projects. 

Mr. Thompson is a graduate of Rhodes University, SA and Bradford University, UK (MSc).


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