Team

David assumed the role of Chairman of the Board in April 2023 and has served as a Board Member since 2019.  He has more than 35 years of experience in the mining industry.  He retired as Executive Vice-President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Agnico Eagle Mines Limited in May 2023, having held the position since 2012.  Prior to joining Agnico in 2005, Mr. Smith was a mining analyst and has also held a variety of mining engineering positions in Canada and abroad. He is a Chartered Director and is currently a member of the Board of Osisko Gold Royalties.  He is also former Director of Three Valley Copper and eCobalt Solutions.  He holds a B.Sc. (Queen’s University) and M.Sc. in Mining Engineering (University of Arizona).

Mark was formerly President & CEO of RNC Minerals (Royal Nickel Corporation) where he led a team that successfully raised over $100 million and advanced the Dumont nickel-cobalt project from initial resource to a fully permitted, construction ready project.

He has held a number of senior management roles with Quadra Mining, Inco, and Purolator Courier, and was a partner at Mercer Management Consulting.

Since 2001, Mr. Selby has been recognized as one of the leading authorities on the nickel market.  He graduated from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) and has also served on the boards of multiple junior mining companies.

Kulvir Singh Gill has twenty years of experience working with innovation and sustainability within the global mining industry. He works with the strategy firm Clareo to lead innovation and growth projects for international Fortune 500 clients across multiple industries in the mining, oil and gas and heavy industrial sectors. He was the Founding Executive Director of the Development Partner Institute (DPI), which advanced sustainability in the mining industry. In his current role as Associate Director with the DPI, he has convened global working groups, spoken at major mining conferences and led their regional catalyst programs in South Africa, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru. He has also recently served as the Innovation Ecosystem Manager for the Canadian Mining Innovation Council (CMIC). He began his career as a management consultant with Oliver Wyman before holding several positions with Barrick Gold involving supply chain management, post-merger integrations, strategic planning, innovation and sustainability. He is also passionate about community service, being the co-founder of the Seva Food Bank in Mississauga. He serves on the boards of the William Osler Health System, the Empire Club of Canada and the Sikh Research Institute. Mr. Gill is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and a 2010 Action Canada Fellow. He holds a B.Sc. and a B. Comm. from the University of Calgary and the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Jennifer Morais has over twenty years of experience as a senior executive in the global private equity and alternatives industry, complemented by a further decade of work experience in the global mining finance and management consulting fields. She is currently Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Acuity Partners Inc., an advisory practice serving the strategic needs of private equity, private credit and other alternative investment firms. Prior to founding Acuity Partners, she spent 17 years as both a GP (as a senior member of TPG Capital’s investor relations team) and an institutional investor (or LP) at each of CPPIB and OMERS Capital Partners. Highlights of her career at TPG and CPPIB include: raising over $2 billion of capital for various TPG funds; making over $9 billion of capital commitments to managers in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America; applying her passion for research and strategic partner identification to formulate the CPPIB private equity group’s first Asian strategy and CPPIB’s entry into Latin America; and playing an instrumental role on over 50 external advisory boards (or limited partner advisory committees) and the investment committees of several investment platforms within CPPIB. While at OMERS Capital Partners, she participated in both fund investing, and in direct co-investments, which initiated and honed her private equity investment judgement skills. Ms. Morais also spent several years at Hatch Associates as a management consultant to global natural resources companies (mining, pulp and paper, steel) on the adoption of leading industry key manufacturing and cost performance metrics. She also previously worked with the Global Mining Group at CIBC World Markets where she participated in the analyzing and underwriting of several greenfield mine development project financings in South America, Asia and Africa. She is a Chartered Financial Advisor (CFA) charter holder and a member of the Toronto CFA society. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and MBA from the University of Toronto.

Julian Ovens is a Partner and owner at Crestview Strategy, a full-service government relations and public affairs agency, and a Director of the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), which assists Canadian exporters secure international contracts, particularly with foreign governments. Until the end of 2019, Julian was Chief of Staff to the Honourable Jim Carr, Minister of International Trade of Canada. He held the same role previously for the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne. His appointment dates from November 2015, shortly after the Trudeau government was first sworn in, when he served as Chief of Staff to the Honourable Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, until January 2017. In 2018 the Hill Times named Julian among the Top 40 Influencing Canadian Foreign Policy Minds. He previously worked at BHP, the world’s largest mining company, most recently as Head of Strategy & Development, Potash (previously Diamonds & Specialty Products), in Saskatoon. Before that, he was Project Director, Iron Ore Africa, Minerals Exploration based in Singapore, where he led commercial efforts for development projects in West / Central Africa, and was engaged in Mergers & Acquisitions work globally for BHP Billiton Aluminium in London. Julian also worked in corporate Mergers & Acquisitions at (Rio Tinto) Alcan in Montreal and Paris, where he led or contributed to buy, sell-side and spin-off international transactions in locations such as the US, Canada, France, Switzerland, Australia, Slovenia, Thailand, Gabon, Cameroon, Congo, South Africa and the Central African Republic (CAR/RCA/ Centrafrique). He began his finance career in investment banking in Global Metals & Mining at Credit Suisse First Boston (now UBS) in Toronto, where he worked on advisory and financing assignments. Julian is a Director on the Board of the Australia-Canada Economic Leadership Forum.

Francisca Quinn is the Co-founder and President of Quinn & Partners Inc., a recognized advisory firm whose mission is to advance sustainability in business and capital markets. It supports organizations to design and execute sustainability / ESG leadership strategies to enhance organizational reputation, manage risks, create value, identify business opportunities and ultimately create more resilient, future-oriented businesses. Clients include significant institutional investors, public and private companies, many of which are continually supported over multi-year mandates. Ms. Quinn leads advisory mandates with the top ten North American pension plans and alternative fund managers. Quinn & Partners became a B Corp in 2014 to reinforce its commitment to positive environmental and social impacts and company values. Ms. Quinn has 25 years of corporate strategy experience. She started her consulting career in 1995 with Oliver Wyman, a leading international management consultancy, where she specialized in growth strategies and organisational design for Fortune 500 companies. Her personal engagement on climate change brought her to the Carbon Trust in London in 2002, where she worked with FTSE companies on carbon emissions reduction and global investors on identifying risks and opportunities from climate change.  At WSP she built a corporate sustainability advisory practice, serving sustainability leaders across a wide range of industries. Ms. Quinn has spoken on ESG, sustainability and climate change-related topics to business and investor audiences and is a sought after moderator on ESG integration in alternative asset classes. In 2014 and 2018, Francisca was recognized as a Clean50 honouree for her contributions to clean capitalism in Canada. Ms. Quinn holds a Masters Degree of Science in Economics and Masters of Business Administration from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Mark was formerly President & CEO of RNC Minerals (Royal Nickel Corporation) where he led a team that successfully raised over $100 million and advanced the Dumont nickel-cobalt project from initial resource to a fully permitted, construction ready project.

He has held a number of senior management roles with Quadra Mining, Inco, and Purolator Courier, and was a partner at Mercer Management Consulting.

Since 2001, Mr. Selby has been recognized as one of the leading authorities on the nickel market.  He graduated from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) and has also served on the boards of multiple junior mining companies.

Steve is an Ontario registered geoscientist with 32 years experience in geophysics, specializing in the magnetic and electromagnetic methods, but also with experience in large exploration compilations. After working at Inco for six years in the Sudbury Basin and at Voisey’s Bay, Steve joined Aeroquest in 2001 and helped develop the AeroTEM system, focusing on the on-time measurements of the linear triangular waveform. In 2007, Mr. Balch founded Triumph Instruments and developed the AirTEM system, a multi-coil helicopter-borne EM system that is now in use in Mexico, China, Canada and Eastern Europe. Steve has also been active in borehole geophysics and has worked to develop new technology including north-seeking gyros, temperature compensated induction conductivity probes, UAV-based magnetometers and high sensitivity magnetic gradiometers.

Chris joins the Company as Vice-President Corporate Development, after supporting the Company’s Corporate Development activities on a part-time basis since 2022. Chris has had a 17-year career in Investment Banking and Capital Markets. From 2015 to 2021, he led the Institutional Equities Mining Specialist Sales desk at various multinational foreign investment banks including Macquarie Capital Markets and Raymond James. In those roles, he has helped raise over $1 billion of equity funding for junior and mid-cap mining companies from Institutional Investors and Private Equity groups globally. Previously, Chris was an Equity Research Mining Analyst at Laurentian Bank Securities covering Base Metals and Uranium equities, where he was responsible for company research coverage, valuations, and the bank’s commodity price forecasts. Chris holds a BBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University.

Mr. Cox has 35 years of experience in base metal operations with Inco Ltd and Vale SA. He has held a number of senior leadership positions in Europe, Canada and Asia including the oversight of operations which have delivered nickel products to consumers for use in multiple generations of nickel batteries. Most recently, Mr. Cox was the Head of UK and Asian Refineries at Vale with responsibility for a portfolio of precious metal and nickel refineries. Mr. Cox holds a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry and an MBA, both from the University of Glamorgan. He served on the Board of Canada Nickel from 2019 to 2024.

Pierre-Philippe has over fifteen years’ experience in leading efforts to successfully acquire environmental, community stakeholder and First Nation approvals for mining projects. For ten years he worked with RNC Minerals to successfully permit the large scale Dumont Nickel project with broad support from the local community and First Nation stakeholders through the implementation of an extensive consultation process that is now regarded and applied as a model. Prior to this, he was also involved in the permitting process of major resource projects such as the Canadian Malartic Gold Mine and the Canadian Royalties Nickel Mine. Prior to his appointment with Canada Nickel, he served as Director of Sustainability at Glencore’s Horne Copper smelter where he was responsible for the environment, health and safety, governance, communications and community relations departments. Pierre-Philippe holds a Masters Degree in Science from Laval University.

John serves as Senior Advisor, Legal and Strategic Matters at Karora Resources Inc. (formerly Royal Nickel Corporation). Mr. Leddy has over 20 years’ experience as a business lawyer and in private equity, specializing in M&A, capital raising and structuring, and other strategic transactions. He is a former Partner in the Business Law Group (M&A) at Osler, a leading Canadian corporate law firm. Mr. Leddy is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada.

Wendy brings more than twenty-five years of experience leading junior and mid-tier publicly-listed mining companies in project financing, capital structuring, capital markets, accounting and internal controls, tax, and financial reporting and public disclosure. Her skills and experience include the completion of a $4 billion finance package for Cobre Panama during her time at Inmet Mining, one of largest finance packages assembled by mid-tier mining company. She was also previously the CFO at Khiron Life Sciences Corporation and held CFO and senior finance positions at Pasinex Resources Limited, Primero Mining Corporation and Inmet Mining Corporation. Wendy holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University and is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CA).

Ms. Kimmett joined the team in June 2024 as Executive People Advisor, focused on People Strategy and Talent Management. Stacy has over 25 years’ experience in the people advisory vertical, working in both large (employee base 30,000+) and small (employee base 35-100) companies in sectors such as mining, software development, banking, telecommunications and legal. Key areas of specialization in these organizations include, leadership development, employee retention, talent engagement, performance management, compensation, total rewards, organizational transformation, and recruitment. Focusing primarily in mining for the last 12 years, Stacy has enjoyed managing the Talent function in companies such as St. Andrew Goldfields, Kirkland Lake Gold, and Wesdome Gold Mines, working with their corporate teams and producing mines in northern Ontario and Quebec. Stacy has extensive experience in high growth companies moving through the M/A process as well as start up organizations with aggressive, transformational, people strategies. Stacy holds a BA (Honours) from Queens University and is certified in several facets of Human Resources (including facilitation, behavioural analytics, leadership strategies, internal communications, and board relations).

Prior to becoming Vice-President Projects, Desmond had been supporting the Crawford project on a part-time consulting basis through the feasibility study process since September 2021 and possesses hands-on knowledge of the Company’s projects.

Desmond has more than 32 years of experience supporting major capital projects in mining, as well as experience with both major greenfield and brownfield infrastructure projects.  He has held various management and leadership roles in project delivery on behalf of asset managers, mining companies, major engineering firms and P3-type partnerships.  In support of full project cycles, he has experience from early scoping/planning, environmental assessment (both Federal and Provincial), PEA, PFS, FS, FEED, detailed design, project delivery (EPCM, EPC & JV) completions, operations and ramp-up.   Prior to joining Canada Nickel, Desmond held the position of Director of Construction within the Project Delivery group at SNC-Lavalin North America where he supported all aspects of project planning and execution.  One of his more significant contributions was supporting senior leadership on the Detour Lake Gold Project which was delivered on time and within budget.  Other major projects he has provided leadership on include: Vale Copper Cliff – Atmospheric Emission Reduction Project (AER), Western Potash – Milestone Project, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (PCS) – Cory Project, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan – Picadilly Project, Florida Rock Industries/Arundel Corporation – Jamer Materials Project.

David assumed the role of Chairman of the Board in April 2023 and has served as a Board Member since 2019.  He has more than 35 years of experience in the mining industry.  He retired as Executive Vice-President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Agnico Eagle Mines Limited in May 2023, having held the position since 2012.  Prior to joining Agnico in 2005, Mr. Smith was a mining analyst and has also held a variety of mining engineering positions in Canada and abroad. He is a Chartered Director and is currently a member of the Board of Osisko Gold Royalties.  He is also former Director of Three Valley Copper and eCobalt Solutions.  He holds a B.Sc. (Queen’s University) and M.Sc. in Mining Engineering (University of Arizona).

Mark was formerly President & CEO of RNC Minerals (Royal Nickel Corporation) where he led a team that successfully raised over $100 million and advanced the Dumont nickel-cobalt project from initial resource to a fully permitted, construction ready project.

He has held a number of senior management roles with Quadra Mining, Inco, and Purolator Courier, and was a partner at Mercer Management Consulting.

Since 2001, Mr. Selby has been recognized as one of the leading authorities on the nickel market.  He graduated from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) and has also served on the boards of multiple junior mining companies.

Kulvir Singh Gill has twenty years of experience working with innovation and sustainability within the global mining industry. He works with the strategy firm Clareo to lead innovation and growth projects for international Fortune 500 clients across multiple industries in the mining, oil and gas and heavy industrial sectors. He was the Founding Executive Director of the Development Partner Institute (DPI), which advanced sustainability in the mining industry. In his current role as Associate Director with the DPI, he has convened global working groups, spoken at major mining conferences and led their regional catalyst programs in South Africa, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru. He has also recently served as the Innovation Ecosystem Manager for the Canadian Mining Innovation Council (CMIC). He began his career as a management consultant with Oliver Wyman before holding several positions with Barrick Gold involving supply chain management, post-merger integrations, strategic planning, innovation and sustainability. He is also passionate about community service, being the co-founder of the Seva Food Bank in Mississauga. He serves on the boards of the William Osler Health System, the Empire Club of Canada and the Sikh Research Institute. Mr. Gill is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and a 2010 Action Canada Fellow. He holds a B.Sc. and a B. Comm. from the University of Calgary and the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Jennifer Morais has over twenty years of experience as a senior executive in the global private equity and alternatives industry, complemented by a further decade of work experience in the global mining finance and management consulting fields. She is currently Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Acuity Partners Inc., an advisory practice serving the strategic needs of private equity, private credit and other alternative investment firms. Prior to founding Acuity Partners, she spent 17 years as both a GP (as a senior member of TPG Capital’s investor relations team) and an institutional investor (or LP) at each of CPPIB and OMERS Capital Partners. Highlights of her career at TPG and CPPIB include: raising over $2 billion of capital for various TPG funds; making over $9 billion of capital commitments to managers in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America; applying her passion for research and strategic partner identification to formulate the CPPIB private equity group’s first Asian strategy and CPPIB’s entry into Latin America; and playing an instrumental role on over 50 external advisory boards (or limited partner advisory committees) and the investment committees of several investment platforms within CPPIB. While at OMERS Capital Partners, she participated in both fund investing, and in direct co-investments, which initiated and honed her private equity investment judgement skills. Ms. Morais also spent several years at Hatch Associates as a management consultant to global natural resources companies (mining, pulp and paper, steel) on the adoption of leading industry key manufacturing and cost performance metrics. She also previously worked with the Global Mining Group at CIBC World Markets where she participated in the analyzing and underwriting of several greenfield mine development project financings in South America, Asia and Africa. She is a Chartered Financial Advisor (CFA) charter holder and a member of the Toronto CFA society. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and MBA from the University of Toronto.

Julian Ovens is a Partner and owner at Crestview Strategy, a full-service government relations and public affairs agency, and a Director of the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), which assists Canadian exporters secure international contracts, particularly with foreign governments. Until the end of 2019, Julian was Chief of Staff to the Honourable Jim Carr, Minister of International Trade of Canada. He held the same role previously for the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne. His appointment dates from November 2015, shortly after the Trudeau government was first sworn in, when he served as Chief of Staff to the Honourable Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, until January 2017. In 2018 the Hill Times named Julian among the Top 40 Influencing Canadian Foreign Policy Minds. He previously worked at BHP, the world’s largest mining company, most recently as Head of Strategy & Development, Potash (previously Diamonds & Specialty Products), in Saskatoon. Before that, he was Project Director, Iron Ore Africa, Minerals Exploration based in Singapore, where he led commercial efforts for development projects in West / Central Africa, and was engaged in Mergers & Acquisitions work globally for BHP Billiton Aluminium in London. Julian also worked in corporate Mergers & Acquisitions at (Rio Tinto) Alcan in Montreal and Paris, where he led or contributed to buy, sell-side and spin-off international transactions in locations such as the US, Canada, France, Switzerland, Australia, Slovenia, Thailand, Gabon, Cameroon, Congo, South Africa and the Central African Republic (CAR/RCA/ Centrafrique). He began his finance career in investment banking in Global Metals & Mining at Credit Suisse First Boston (now UBS) in Toronto, where he worked on advisory and financing assignments. Julian is a Director on the Board of the Australia-Canada Economic Leadership Forum.

Francisca Quinn is the Co-founder and President of Quinn & Partners Inc., a recognized advisory firm whose mission is to advance sustainability in business and capital markets. It supports organizations to design and execute sustainability / ESG leadership strategies to enhance organizational reputation, manage risks, create value, identify business opportunities and ultimately create more resilient, future-oriented businesses. Clients include significant institutional investors, public and private companies, many of which are continually supported over multi-year mandates. Ms. Quinn leads advisory mandates with the top ten North American pension plans and alternative fund managers. Quinn & Partners became a B Corp in 2014 to reinforce its commitment to positive environmental and social impacts and company values. Ms. Quinn has 25 years of corporate strategy experience. She started her consulting career in 1995 with Oliver Wyman, a leading international management consultancy, where she specialized in growth strategies and organisational design for Fortune 500 companies. Her personal engagement on climate change brought her to the Carbon Trust in London in 2002, where she worked with FTSE companies on carbon emissions reduction and global investors on identifying risks and opportunities from climate change.  At WSP she built a corporate sustainability advisory practice, serving sustainability leaders across a wide range of industries. Ms. Quinn has spoken on ESG, sustainability and climate change-related topics to business and investor audiences and is a sought after moderator on ESG integration in alternative asset classes. In 2014 and 2018, Francisca was recognized as a Clean50 honouree for her contributions to clean capitalism in Canada. Ms. Quinn holds a Masters Degree of Science in Economics and Masters of Business Administration from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Mark was formerly President & CEO of RNC Minerals (Royal Nickel Corporation) where he led a team that successfully raised over $100 million and advanced the Dumont nickel-cobalt project from initial resource to a fully permitted, construction ready project.

He has held a number of senior management roles with Quadra Mining, Inco, and Purolator Courier, and was a partner at Mercer Management Consulting.

Since 2001, Mr. Selby has been recognized as one of the leading authorities on the nickel market.  He graduated from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) and has also served on the boards of multiple junior mining companies.

Steve is an Ontario registered geoscientist with 32 years experience in geophysics, specializing in the magnetic and electromagnetic methods, but also with experience in large exploration compilations. After working at Inco for six years in the Sudbury Basin and at Voisey’s Bay, Steve joined Aeroquest in 2001 and helped develop the AeroTEM system, focusing on the on-time measurements of the linear triangular waveform. In 2007, Mr. Balch founded Triumph Instruments and developed the AirTEM system, a multi-coil helicopter-borne EM system that is now in use in Mexico, China, Canada and Eastern Europe. Steve has also been active in borehole geophysics and has worked to develop new technology including north-seeking gyros, temperature compensated induction conductivity probes, UAV-based magnetometers and high sensitivity magnetic gradiometers.

Chris joins the Company as Vice-President Corporate Development, after supporting the Company’s Corporate Development activities on a part-time basis since 2022. Chris has had a 17-year career in Investment Banking and Capital Markets. From 2015 to 2021, he led the Institutional Equities Mining Specialist Sales desk at various multinational foreign investment banks including Macquarie Capital Markets and Raymond James. In those roles, he has helped raise over $1 billion of equity funding for junior and mid-cap mining companies from Institutional Investors and Private Equity groups globally. Previously, Chris was an Equity Research Mining Analyst at Laurentian Bank Securities covering Base Metals and Uranium equities, where he was responsible for company research coverage, valuations, and the bank’s commodity price forecasts. Chris holds a BBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University.

Mr. Cox has 35 years of experience in base metal operations with Inco Ltd and Vale SA. He has held a number of senior leadership positions in Europe, Canada and Asia including the oversight of operations which have delivered nickel products to consumers for use in multiple generations of nickel batteries. Most recently, Mr. Cox was the Head of UK and Asian Refineries at Vale with responsibility for a portfolio of precious metal and nickel refineries. Mr. Cox holds a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry and an MBA, both from the University of Glamorgan. He served on the Board of Canada Nickel from 2019 to 2024.

Pierre-Philippe has over fifteen years’ experience in leading efforts to successfully acquire environmental, community stakeholder and First Nation approvals for mining projects. For ten years he worked with RNC Minerals to successfully permit the large scale Dumont Nickel project with broad support from the local community and First Nation stakeholders through the implementation of an extensive consultation process that is now regarded and applied as a model. Prior to this, he was also involved in the permitting process of major resource projects such as the Canadian Malartic Gold Mine and the Canadian Royalties Nickel Mine. Prior to his appointment with Canada Nickel, he served as Director of Sustainability at Glencore’s Horne Copper smelter where he was responsible for the environment, health and safety, governance, communications and community relations departments. Pierre-Philippe holds a Masters Degree in Science from Laval University.

John serves as Senior Advisor, Legal and Strategic Matters at Karora Resources Inc. (formerly Royal Nickel Corporation). Mr. Leddy has over 20 years’ experience as a business lawyer and in private equity, specializing in M&A, capital raising and structuring, and other strategic transactions. He is a former Partner in the Business Law Group (M&A) at Osler, a leading Canadian corporate law firm. Mr. Leddy is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada.

Wendy brings more than twenty-five years of experience leading junior and mid-tier publicly-listed mining companies in project financing, capital structuring, capital markets, accounting and internal controls, tax, and financial reporting and public disclosure. Her skills and experience include the completion of a $4 billion finance package for Cobre Panama during her time at Inmet Mining, one of largest finance packages assembled by mid-tier mining company. She was also previously the CFO at Khiron Life Sciences Corporation and held CFO and senior finance positions at Pasinex Resources Limited, Primero Mining Corporation and Inmet Mining Corporation. Wendy holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University and is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CA).

Ms. Kimmett joined the team in June 2024 as Executive People Advisor, focused on People Strategy and Talent Management. Stacy has over 25 years’ experience in the people advisory vertical, working in both large (employee base 30,000+) and small (employee base 35-100) companies in sectors such as mining, software development, banking, telecommunications and legal. Key areas of specialization in these organizations include, leadership development, employee retention, talent engagement, performance management, compensation, total rewards, organizational transformation, and recruitment. Focusing primarily in mining for the last 12 years, Stacy has enjoyed managing the Talent function in companies such as St. Andrew Goldfields, Kirkland Lake Gold, and Wesdome Gold Mines, working with their corporate teams and producing mines in northern Ontario and Quebec. Stacy has extensive experience in high growth companies moving through the M/A process as well as start up organizations with aggressive, transformational, people strategies. Stacy holds a BA (Honours) from Queens University and is certified in several facets of Human Resources (including facilitation, behavioural analytics, leadership strategies, internal communications, and board relations).

Prior to becoming Vice-President Projects, Desmond had been supporting the Crawford project on a part-time consulting basis through the feasibility study process since September 2021 and possesses hands-on knowledge of the Company’s projects.

Desmond has more than 32 years of experience supporting major capital projects in mining, as well as experience with both major greenfield and brownfield infrastructure projects.  He has held various management and leadership roles in project delivery on behalf of asset managers, mining companies, major engineering firms and P3-type partnerships.  In support of full project cycles, he has experience from early scoping/planning, environmental assessment (both Federal and Provincial), PEA, PFS, FS, FEED, detailed design, project delivery (EPCM, EPC & JV) completions, operations and ramp-up.   Prior to joining Canada Nickel, Desmond held the position of Director of Construction within the Project Delivery group at SNC-Lavalin North America where he supported all aspects of project planning and execution.  One of his more significant contributions was supporting senior leadership on the Detour Lake Gold Project which was delivered on time and within budget.  Other major projects he has provided leadership on include: Vale Copper Cliff – Atmospheric Emission Reduction Project (AER), Western Potash – Milestone Project, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (PCS) – Cory Project, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan – Picadilly Project, Florida Rock Industries/Arundel Corporation – Jamer Materials Project.