Presenters

Dr. Edmund Sides

Edmund Sides is a geologist with over 25 years of experience in mineral exploration and mining. His work has covered most stages of the mining cycle, from grass-roots exploration through to production. As well as all the usual hands-on range of geological fieldwork tasks around the globe, Dr Sides has played an active role in the development of computer-based applications for use in resource modelling and the management of digital geological databases for exploration and resource evaluation.

In his current role as principal geologist in AMEC’s Mining Services group, based in the UK, Dr Sides specialises in the incorporation of geological controls into mineral resource estimates. He has lectured widely on this topic. AMEC has more than 2,100 engineering, technical and environmental specialists working on mining projects around the world. AMEC advances projects from concept to closure, and operates from offices across North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa

Dr. Elena Clarici

Dr Elena Clarici is Portfolio Manager of Scipion Mining and Resources Fund, multi-asset fund investing in mining opportunities across African continent.  Scipion Capital is  a frontier market specialist and fund manager  focused on two distinctive themes: commodities and Africa. Prior to joining Scipion Capital, Elena was a Senior Investment Analyst with Geneva-based Ocean Finance SA, a natural resources investment firm and advisor to Africa Energy Resources Fund.  Elena was founder and Managing Partner of London-based Commodity Energy Capital – CeCap LLP, a specialist investment boutique, providing analysis and due diligence to investment funds and family offices looking to enter the natural resources sector. Originally, Elena was trained as a mining equity analyst and natural resources investment banker at various institutions in the City of London. Elena studied mining and earned her PhD from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London. She is also the Chairman of a company focused on farming and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and the Chairman of the Association of Mining Analysts in London.

Professor Philip Crowson

Professor Phillip Crowson graduated from Cambridge in 1961 with first-class honours in economics. After ten years working as an economist in various companies in the UK chemical industry, he joined the economics department of what was then Rio Tinto Zinc Corp. He became head of department, and the company’s chief economist in May 1981, a position he held until his retirement at the end of 1996.

Mr Crowson was an invited director of the London Metal Exchange until 2000, and still chairs one of its committees. He is an honorary professor and a professorial research fellow at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee, and has continued to add to his many published papers and articles.

Richard Thompson

Bio to follow shortly