Board of Directors

Vernon Arseneau

CEO and Director

Mr. Arseneau has over forty years of experience in exploration, project management and development, of which the last twenty-five have been in South America principally in Peru, Chile and Argentina. Vern spent 20 years working as exploration manager and senior geologist for Noranda Inc. in Canada and South America. He was general manager of Noranda's Peru office and project manager of the El Pachon porphyry Cu-Mo project in Argentina. He has consulted on numerous base and precious metals projects including as Vice President Exploration for Zincore Metals Inc. and was responsible for the exploration and feasibility studies of two zinc deposits and the discovery of the Dolores Cu-Mo porphyry, Peru. More recently, he was COO of Royal Road Minerals Ltd. exploring for gold in Colombia and Nicaragua. Vern holds a Bachelor of Science in geology.

Michael Shuh

Director

Michael leads Canaccord Genuity’s Financial Institutions Group in Canada. Before he joined Canaccord Genuity in 2017, he was Head of Financial Institutions Investment Banking at CIBC and also worked at National Bank Financial. As well as covering traditional financial institutions, Michael has deep expertise in structured products and special purpose acquisition corps (SPACs). He also provides advice on raising capital and M&A to alternative financiers and FinTech companies. Michael has a Bachelor of Business Administration Honors from the Lazaridis School of Business & Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University and a Master of Business Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

Patrizia Ferrarese

Director

Ms. Ferrarese has more than 20 years of experience in capital markets, entrepreneurship, and strategy consulting. Ms. Ferrarese held senior roles in business design and product management at IPC, Tangerine Bank and Praxair, with responsibility for strategic growth across Canada. Her management consulting experience includes engagements in South America and EMEA spanning graphite, oil and gas, and potash industries focused on identifying new market opportunities. Her career includes equity and options market making and trading in North America, culminating in portfolio and commodity trading manager roles as co-founder of an investment management company. Beyond her professional career, Ms. Ferrarese mentors case competition teams at the Rotman School of Management and is an Advisor with Catalyste+. Ms. Ferrarese holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from SDA Bocconi, an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University, and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Economics from York University.

Ben Bowen

Director

Mr. Bowen has 20 years of experience building businesses in multiple sectors. After a success start to his career with Xerox Canada, Ben quickly ventured into entrepreneurship. His first venture, Seaway Document Solutions Inc, which he purchased in 2002, was acquired in 2013. He then co-founded a start-up software company and acted as CEO, servicing the global shared workspace industry. Following an exit from the software company, Ben started consulting for Canadian based SaaS firms, with a focus on developing go-to-market strategies for recently funded companies. Since 2016, Ben has continued consulting with his latest venture, Open Door Media, which is a full stack marketing firm focused on the lifestyle industry. Ben is also a founder of Innovate Kingston.