Shannon Katary

Director of Marketing & Communications

Maestro Digital Mine

Shannon Katary is the Director of Marketing and Communications for Maestro Digital Mine. Shannon is responsible for the creation and implementation of the Marketing and Communications Strategy for Maestro. As a senior member of the team, she manages and develops the strategic branding, technical writing (internal and external messaging), builds and strengths community and client relations, event coordination, photography, media and public relations for Maestro’s digital solutions. Focused on building awareness and communicating Maestro Digital Mine’s role in the mining digital innovation space in Canada and at a global scale. Through the marketing and communications, continues to put Maestro on the map as a world leader in developing digital products including emerging AI platforms that improves safety of miners & mine operations, accelerates productivity at the face and reduces carbon emissions. Previously, held the position of Vice President of Marketing & Communications for CEMI and the Ultra Deep Mining Network (UDMN) since its inception in 2006. In her 12 years with CEMI, she has communicated and connected the world to the importance of advancing research and innovation in the mining field in Canada and beyond. Shannon was responsible for the creation and implementation of the CEMI and UDMN Marketing and Communications Strategy; business development of building and strengthening relationships with Industry, SMEs, Government representatives and University researchers at the local, provincial, national, and global levels; and the development of sponsorship and membership strategies. She also managed the public and media relations of the Centre. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A. Honours in International Relations/Political Science in 2003. In 2014, she completed her graduate studies in Community Relations for Extractive Industries at Queen’s University in the Department of Mining Engineering. She is a keynote speaker at various mining events including the Women in Mining Northern Ontario Chapter. She serves on various volunteer organizations in her community such as MMTS – Modern Mining & Technology Sudbury, MECA Symposium, Dynamic Earth’s Go Deeper and Walden Mountain Bike Club. In 2009, she received the Civic Award for Volunteerism from the City of Greater Sudbury. In 2013, Shannon was awarded the Top 40 Under 40 Sudbury by Northern Ontario Business. In 2019, Shannon won the prestigious CIM – Bedford Canadian Young Leaders in Mining Award. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-katary-70117a6/

Kyra Meyer

Manager Operational Systems

Torex Gold Resources Inc

Kyra is a creative and versatile Industrial Engineer with more than 20 years of experience in operations, in a variety of industries that includes CPG, Oil & Gas, Consulting and Mining. With a strong business intelligence and analytics background, she is always been convinced that there are better ways of doing things, what makes her passionate about innovation, technology and continuous improvement. The words Status Quo are not included in her vocabulary. In her current tenure, Kyra leads the Operational Systems team at Torex Gold, dedicated to design, develop and implement processes, tools and technology to optimize the mining operation.

Jennifer Tsai

Manager Partner Growth

MaRs Discovery District

Jennifer manages corporate partner growth at MaRS Discovery District. She collaborates closely with strategy and innovation leaders at large corporate organizations to prepare them for the new digital economy and create sustainable business models. Having worked in IT, aerospace, telecommunications, banking and financial services sectors in both domestic and international markets, Jennifer is excited about how rapidly evolving technology can be applied in new industries. Jennifer graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Commerce in Information Systems.

Jennifer Brkljačićh

Senior Analyst & Electrical Authority

Vale North Atlantic

Jennifer is an electronics technician, electrical technologist, master electrician, data scientist, and leader in the mining industry.

She started her career in the mining industry over eighteen years ago an apprentice. In February 2006, she became the company’s first globally licensed female electrician. Since that time, she has held a wide array of positions in the Automation, Digital Maintenance, and Digital Transformation.

Jennifer enjoys the challenge of looking for inefficient processes, finds ways to streamline them, and consistently strives to boost the productivity of everyone around her through technology and innovation. She has recently led the successful project of implementing Condition Based Maintenance at Vale’s Totten Mine.

Jennifer is also an active volunteer as a hockey coach, Women in Science & Engineering Sudbury Chapter and CSA.Z462-21 Workplace Electrical Safety working committee.

Susan Sharp

Partner, Digital Experience & Innovation Consulting

PwC Canada

Specialization: Susan Sharp is a Director in PricewaterhouseCoopers Digital Services practice. She is a versatile, performance-driven professional with over 25 years of experience in front office transformation in financial services, industry, government and technology. Her expertise includes over 18 years of technology, banking and mutual fund experience with a focus on customer and employee experience.

Susan’s focus is on the creation of quantifiable business value through the implementation of customer centric programs. Her experience spans across the sales and marketing disciplines including strategy, planning and human-centered design. She has held senior strategic roles throughout her career where she’s had broad experience leading teams through strategic marketing planning and sales transformation. She has led teams through the branding process and held roles in global advertising teams. Recently, Sue worked with PwC Australia in their experience center, to bring the best of their knowledge to the Canadian market.

Her Specializations include:

• Immersive co-creation and agile design
• Digital business strategy
• Marketing research, planning and strategy development and brand communications
• Strategic Planning, Stakeholder Management
• Operational Effectiveness and IT Advisory
• Business Case Preparation and Reviews
• Program and Project Management

Joe AbiDaoud

Vice President Information Technology

Yamana Gold Inc

Joe is a senior IT executive with over 20 years’ experience in the field of technology . He has spent the last 14 years in leadership roles and has worked in several industries including banking, telecommunications, outsourcing, retail energy, and mining. Joe has earned a reputation as a transformational leader helping organizations realize IT’s potential as the evolution of technology persists. He recently graduated with a Masters Science Degree in Technology Management from Laurier University and joined Yamana Gold as their head of IT in Feb 2017.

Danial Mausoof

Global Head of Sales Development, Global Services Enterprise

Nokia

As Global Head of Sales for Enterprise Services, Danial leads the sales and solution practices across the globe for Nokia’s leading and fast-expanding enterprise business, focusing on services led solutions in verticals such as transportation, energy, public sector and manufacturing. His ambition is to future-proof digital adoption across diverse markets and strive for value creation. A truly global citizen, spending more than 17 years in the telecommunications industry, Danial has gained experience, spanning from sales, marketing, strategy to network deployment across a diverse set of cultures in Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and North America. Danial is a frequent speaker at various industry events such as 5G Asia, IEEE, ITU and SEMI, covering topics of 5G, Analytics, Big Data, and market development. Danial is also a founder of a not-for-profit organization that manages a charitable fund in Australia which educates under-privileged children across Southeast Asia. His pro-bono efforts have enabled him to participate in a number of panels on development initiatives in the region. Danial holds a Bachelor of Computer Science and an MBA from IE Business School in Spain. Danial presently lives in London with his wife and two children.

Dr. Nathan Stubina

VP, Technologies, Operations

Sherritt International Corporatio

Dr. Stubina joined Sherritt International as VP Technologies in November 2018.  Prior to that, he was Managing Director of Innovation for McEwen Mining.  With 30 years of international industrial experience, Nathan also worked at various major mining companies including Barrick Gold Corp., Noranda Inc. and Falconbridge Limited. Nathan holds a Ph.D., in Metallurgy and Materials from the University of Toronto and a B. Eng. in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering from McGill University. Nathan is currently a member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO), and was VP International of the CIM.  He is a Past-President of MetSoc (Metallurgy & Materials Society of the CIM), a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt and a member of the Lassonde Institute of Mining’s Advisory Committee at the University of Toronto.  Dr. Stubina was named a Fellow of the CIM in 2012 and a CIM Distinguished Lecturer in 2019.

Herman Lombard

Director, Mining Consulting

PwC Canada

Herman Lombard is a Director in PwC’s Management Consulting practice, based in Toronto.  Herman Lombard is an experienced IT and Business management consultant to CEO’s, CIO’s, Executives and Entrepreneurs to strategize, conceptualise, design and implement sustainable technology enabled solutions. He has been consulting for over 20 years and with his solid business acumen is fast to develop trusted client relationships. He has a true passion for technology and strives to stay abreast of the latest technology trends to provide clients with guidance on how to most optimally transform their business in the digital era, whilst driving increasing organizational efficiency at lower cost.

Herman is passionate about his craft and strives to bring an innovative and continuous improvement approach and mind-set to each engagement. He believes that often the answer lies within the business for optimization; and at the boundaries of, or outside the organisation, when a step change is required. He is excited about the disruption the fourth industrial revolution will bring and love assisting clients in navigating their required, and often necessary, transitions.

His past clients include Anglo American, Anglo American Platinum, Acacia Mining, Barclays Group, BHP Billiton and ING Bank. He is a solution architect, program or project manager that effectively weave together technological and commercial requirements, communicates exceptionally well and is driven to deliver value.

Eduardo Barredo

Director, Finance Effectiveness Management

PwC Canada

Eduardo Barredo is a Director in the Finance Effectiveness Management Consulting practice. He has over 22 years of experience as a consultant, applying a pragmatic approach to complex business transformation and finance initiatives. He specializes in strategy transformation and enterprise performance management (EPM) including, project management, process improvement and supporting technology for large and complex EPM solutions in the Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting and Financial Consolidation and Reporting processes.

Eduardo brings deep experience providing strong guidance to his clients on the development of their finance transformation initiatives better aligning existing processes, people and systems to their overall business strategy.

Eduardo has worked with clients in a number of industries such as Mining, Asset Management, Manufacturing, Real Estate and Public Sector. This experience includes projects conducted throughout North and South America with a strong focus working with mining companies in Mexico, Brazil and Canada.

Kevin Chan

Partner – Mining – Tax Services

PwC Canada

Kevin is a partner in the Tax practice of PwC in Toronto, specializing in the mining sector. Kevin has over 13 years of experience providing Canadian corporate and cross-border tax services (including cross-border financing, corporate reorganizations, corporate compliance and tax audit defense) to large and medium-sized multinational mining companies.

Kevin also has significant experience on mining M&A transactions including tax due diligence, domestic and international structuring and tax modelling for both Canadian inbound and outbound mining companies.

Kevin regularly tutors at CPA Canada tax courses and has presented to the Tax Executives Institute, the Canadian Tax Foundation and at numerous mining tax conferences

Brice Samulenok

Commander- Cyber Command Centre

Difenda

Brice is an experienced IT and information security professional with a Canadian Forces background and over 20 years’ experience leading and developing security solutions; effectively managing risk in an ever changing environment. Brice specializes in offensive security; penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, red teaming and threat assessments. Brice also has extensive experience in the analysis and reverse engineering of malware and has participated in several international efforts to analyze and decipher sophisticated ransomware samples. Brice also has experience in the development of policies, procedures and standards relating to cybersecurity. Some of his experience highlights include:

Red Teaming: Targeted scenario creation and execution, Reconnaissance, client-side exploits, wireless attack vectors, hardware spear-phishing, and physical infiltration.

Penetration Testing and Security Assessments: External and internal penetration tests, Passive Information Gathering including profiling from the deep web, Active information gathering, Vulnerability Scanning, Windows and Linux buffer overflow exploitation, Privilege escalation, client side attacks, Web application attacks, Password Attacks, and AV evasion.

Cyber Security Education Program: Creation of custom security education training tools and supporting materials. Software Security Assurance Program: Planning and development of secure software development framework.

Frank Post

Senior Director-Cloud Security

Difenda

Frank is a seasoned technology and security executive with global experience in commercial, telecommunications, and managed services sectors.

Before joining Difenda in 2017 as the leader of the Cloud Security practice, Frank was the head of managed services at a high profile MSSP where he expanded the managed infrastructure practice there to include a world-class Security Operations Centre and a DevOps practice supporting customers operating in public and hybrid Cloud configurations. Providing services to the standard of SSAE16, CSAE3402, SOC 1 and SOC 2, PCI DSS, and ISO certifications was a requirement in order to serve the many customers in regulated industries.

Frank spent the first 15 years of his career in the finance, insurance, and legal sectors, architecting, deploying, and managing Windows and Linux networks to high degrees of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Claude Schimper

Regional Vice President-Russia

Kinross Gold Corporation

Claude Schimper has over 30 years of gold mining industry experience. He joined Kinross Gold Corporation as Vice President & General Manager, Kupol Gold Mine, in April 2010,

and assumed the position of the company’s Regional Vice President for the Russian region in July 2014, and the position of Senior Vice-President, Operations Russia in April 2019.

Before Kinross, Claude was COO of Balkan Resources Inc., and had earlier worked at Placer Dome, Canada, and several South African mines including AngloGold Ashanti’s Mponeng gold mine.

Claude received a South African National Higher Diploma in Metalliferous Mining at the Technikon Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa).

Joseph Gladu

Vice President

North America, Commit Works

Leveraging deep mining and technology expertise, Joe has developed, managed and evolved go-to-market strategies and partner eco-system programs for companies in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific regions. A seasoned business coach and builder of high performing teams, he has worked with start-ups, mid-tier, and Fortune 100 companies. Website : https://www.commit.works/

Sriram Panchpakesan

Associate Vice President and Head of Engineering Services

Infosys

Sriram Panchpakesan is Associate Vice President and heads our Engineering Services Consulting practice globally  at Infosys. In his current role, he is responsible for working with clients in solving their challenges in the areas of IoT, 5G and other Advanced Engineering area  for Infosys’s Engineering services and solutions.. Sriram has 25+ years of work experience, with his past experience includes being the Head of Resources -Agriculture, Metals & Mining and Chemicals verticals. Sriram has helped clients in  multiple business process transformations and digital transformation programs to solve key business challenges and drive value realization.

Alan Hyde

Principal Engineer, Process Control

XPS

Alan has over 30 years experience in the application of process control and automation to process plants. He joined the XPS Process Control Group (former Falconbridge Technology Centre) in 2004, where he has primarily supported mineral processing and extractive metallurgical operations at the Kidd Metallurgical Site and Sudbury INO. Alan has also provided support to other Glencore and external client sites. Previously Alan spent 18 years with Foster Wheeler in the UK engineering process control strategies and control systems for hydrocarbon processing plants. Alan holds an MSc. in Process Automation & Control from the Universities of Sheffield & Newcastle and an MEng. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nottingham.

Feroz Ashraf

Executive Advisor

Everest Professional Services/PTAG Inc

Mr. Ashraf is the Executive Advisor at Everest Professional Services and & PTAG Inc, since January 2018.  Prior to that he was the Executive Advisor and Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors at Uranium One Inc, position he has held since April 2015. Previously, he served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Corporation since March 2014. Mr. Ashraf has over 35 years of experience in the resource sector, including mining and metallurgy, oil and gas, and related downstream industries. Uranium One is amongst the top 5 uranium producers globally and a recognized leader in the field. While at SNC Lavalin, he was EVP and member Office of The President responsible for the worldwide operations of over 6,000 employees and for executing numerous projects in over 30 countries. He held over 15 directorships and board positions within SNC-Lavalin affiliates, joint ventures and project alliances. Mr. Ashraf also served as a non-executive member of a number of professional, industry and community associations. He is an active member of the Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ) and the Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO). Mr. Ashraf was a guest lecturer in the Global Mining Management Program of The Schulich School of Business at York University (2014 – 2018 Winter MBA program), and a lead lecturer in the Certificate of Mine Management course “Mining in the Global Environment” at the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University (Winter 2014 and Fall 2015 programs).

Norman Hartshorne

President

Secure Links

Norman Hartshorne brings well over twenty years of experience in providing industry-leading network security services and solutions.  He is an early developer of network security management programs, and has worked closely with financial services, government, health care, manufacturing, education, and resource-based industries throughout the years providing him with an in-depth understanding of the complexities of managing and maintaining an organization’s network security infrastructure.  Mr. Hartshorne has worked in senior management roles for both Qnetix Inc. and Sea Change Corporation, and is a graduate of York University’s Computer Science program.

Tejas Kashyap

Mineral Resource Specialist

Government of the Northwest Territories, Yellowknife

Tejas Kashyap is the Mineral Resource Specialist for Government of the Northwest Territories. He is based in Yellowknife, Canada and is involved in all areas of the GNWT’s mining investment activities, with particular emphasis on advancing precious metals, base metals and diamond mining projects in the region. During his tenure, De Beers Canada Inc. and Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. opened world’s biggest, newest diamond mine (Gahcho Kué mine) with capital costs C$1.1 billion.

Prior to this, Mr. Kashyap has worked for Emerald Technology Ventures, Toronto – one of Canada’s largest clean technology venture capital funds, investing in early to mid-stage technology companies with focus on energy, smart grids, water and advanced materials.

Ariel Avitan

Chief Commercial Officer & Co-Founder,

Percepto

Ariel Avitan is a big data expert who brings with him over 16 years of experience in the dynamic startup and marketing world. Prior to co-founding Percepto, Ariel was a founding member and VP Marketing of Sequoia backed Signals and Head of Information Security at Frost & Sullivan  Sullivan Europe. Ariel brings with him in-depth knowledge of enterprise security needs as well as a passion for using drones to provide data driven actionable insights. Ariel has a B.Sc in Computer Science from Ben Gurion University.

Dr. Andreas Rompel

President & CEO Jourdan Resources

Jourdan Resources Inc

With nearly 30 years in the industry Andy has gained a wealth of experience in the industry as a Team Leader, Shaft Geologist, Divisional/Chief Geologist, Exploration Manager, Project Manager, Country Manager, Head of Department, Corporate Business Manager, Director and more recently as the CEO of the Cobalt Power Group. He has worked in a variety of commodities, ranging from Gold to PGE’s and Silver on the precious metal side, Copper and Nickel (base metals), to iron ore and thermal and coking coal (bulk commodities) and more recently in Cobalt (battery raw materials). As part of a multi-disciplinary team, he has assessed and technically reviewed capital projects within Anglo American for more than 10 years, and has been on the board of Spectrem (an Anglo-American Company) as Technical Director. Before joining the Vancouver-based Cobalt Power Group as President & CEO, he investigated new business opportunities worldwide for Hochschild Mining plc.

Dan Schmelzer

VP IT

Detour Gold

Dan Schmelzer is an IT executive with over twenty-five years of experience in IT application development and operations. Dan holds a Computer Science degree and an MBA degree from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Dan has held leadership positions in IT for the natural resources and utilities sectors having worked for global organizations such as Vale SA, ShawCor, Enbridge and Ontario Hydro. Since Jan 2016, Dan is leading the IT function at Detour Gold Corp.

Don Duval

CEO

NORCAT

As one of Canada’s foremost thinkers on innovation and the future of work and learning, Don Duval is the CEO of NORCAT, a global, multifaceted enterprise dedicated to advancing the dynamic and evolving needs of the new world of work and the innovation economy. Don has spent more than two decades leading, growing and transforming organizations and businesses, working with multinational companies, tech startups, academic/research institutions, governments and clients around the world. As CEO of NORCAT, he has transformed the organization to become the global leader in skilled labour training and innovation services focused on developing and delivering programs, services, and resources that enhance productivity and safety in the global skilled labour industries. Previously, Don served as VP of Strategy/Operations for the MaRS Discovery District and as Senior Manager, Strategy and Operations Consulting, at Deloitte. He holds both an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Queen’s University and a Master of Applied Science and Engineering from the University of Toronto.

Adam Allouba

Partner

Dentons Canada

Adam Allouba is a partner in the Corporate group of Dentons’ M