Board of Directors
Meet the Board
Richard Crookes
Non-Executive Director
Richard Crookes
Non-Executive Director
Richard has over 35 years’ experience across a diverse range of projects, geographies and commodities in the resources and investment industries, and as such has a unique blend of resources industry experience as both an operator and investor.
Richard is founder and managing partner of Lionhead Resources and chair of the Investment Committee. He is presently a company director with 3 ASX-listed companies, including Chairman of Black Rock Mining (Graphite), interim Chair of Vital Metals Ltd (Rare Earths) and NED of Lithium Power International Ltd (Lithium).
Mr Crookes holds a BSc in Geology and a Grad Dip in Applied Finance and is a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australia (FINSIA) and a member of AICD.
Lisa Riley
Non-Executive Director
Lisa Riley
Non-Executive Director
Lisa has nearly 30 years of experience in global capital markets, finance, mining advisory and government relations. She also has extensive experience stakeholder relations and incorporating an ESG focus in real and measurable ways.
Lisa is presently a company director of two TSX-listed companies; Star Diamond Corp and GFG Resources and is a board member of ASX-listed company Vital Metals.
Lisa previously held the positions of Vice-President and Director of Equity Sales at TD Securities in London, UK; Vice-President, Equity Sales at RBC Capital Markets, London, UK; Vice-President, Equity Research at Lehman Brothers, New York. Lisa is fluent in three languages and is based in Toronto, Canada.
Marny Reakes
Non-Executive Director
Marny Reakes
Non-Executive Director
Marny has more than 25 years of international experience in the resources industry, the last 6 years having been in leadership roles in deep-tech start-ups, Venture Capital and Corporate Venture Capital investing.
Marny has an engineering background having worked for 24 years in various international roles with BHP and Rio Tinto in USA, Canada, Singapore, Netherlands, Australia and South Africa. More recently, Marny held the position of VP of Cemvita (USA), a start-up focussed on bio-solutions for the energy transition, including products in lithium and copper.
Marny holds a B.Eng (Chemical & Process) and an MBA (Technology Management).
Chris Tilley
Non-Executive Director
Chris Tilley
Non-Executive Director
Chris has over 30 years’ experience in the energy and technology sectors having led a number of high growth companies based in North America with international reach. Chris also has deep experience in finance and engineering. Chris currently advises high growth companies that create positive sustainability related business impacts.
Chris’ prior operational leadership roles include: CEO of ENGIE Storage; CEO of SunLink Corporation; President and CFO of Prevalent Power Inc; and Founder / CEO of Porvenir Inc. Prior to these roles Chris worked in investment banking at Santander Investment in Argentina and in engineering at Bechtel.
Chris has an MBA from INSEAD and a MSME from Purdue University.
Tzveta Tchorbadjeiva
Non-Executive Director
Tzveta Tchorbadjeiva
Non- Executive Director
Tzveta is a senior executive in the natural-resources sector with 25 years of global experience. Her career spans investment banking, capital markets, and leadership roles in M&A, strategy, business development, major capital projects, and finance at two of the world’s leading mining companies.
Based in London, Tzveta is Senior Vice President in the COO Office at Anglo American, where she oversees a portfolio of operating assets and growth projects in future-facing commodities. Since joining in 2020, she has helped define Anglo American’s base metals strategy and advance major growth initiatives. She has served as a board member and committee chair at Collahuasi, Quellaveco and Samancor, and most recently led negotiations with Codelco that resulted in a US$5 billion agreement to develop the companies’ adjacent mines in Chile.
Before joining Anglo American, Tzveta spent nearly a decade at BHP, culminating in her role as Global Head of M&A. She led several portfolio-transformation initiatives, most notably the US $10.5 billion sale of BHP’s onshore oil-and-gas business in the United States to BP p.l.c. in 2018, a transaction that required extensive engagement with U.S. oil-and-gas counterparties. She also served as a board director of Metalysis, a UK-based early-stage venture commercializing electrolytic solid-state metal- and alloy-powder processing technology.
Earlier in her career, Tzveta spent more than twelve years in investment and commercial banking with JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas, focusing on capital markets and transaction origination and execution in the natural resources sector. Tzveta holds an MBA from the University of Michigan and a Certificate in Global Management from INSEAD, and she is fluent in English, Bulgarian, and German.
John Worth
CEO and Managing Director
John Worth
CEO and Managing Director
John is an infrastructure development leader with over 25 years of experience in senior roles in the power generation, transport and property development sectors.
He has worked extensively in renewable energy including geothermal and has completed post-graduate studies in Engineering Management, Strategy and Innovation, and Private Equity & Venture Capital, at Auckland, Oxford and Harvard respectively.
His background includes time in start-ups and most recently he was CEO of an NZX-listed renewable electricity generator.
