Board of Directors

Brian Menell is a British/South African industrialist and investor with natural resource and energy interests across both emerging and developed markets.

He is the Chairman and CEO of TechMet Limited, a private industrial company building a portfolio of world-class assets to secure supply of the metals critical to Electric Vehicles and Renewable Energy systems.  The company is focused on projects which produce, process or recycle these “Technology Metals”, and currently has operations in North America, South America, Europe and Africa.

Through the Kemet Group, which Brian founded in 2010 and served as its CEO, he has participated in mining and other natural resource projects across Africa, including bauxite, tin, tungsten, energy and sustainable forestry.  The Group also advised certain multinational corporations and African Governments on mining policy and M&A activity.

Brian serves as a Director of Trinity Metals Group, an integrated Tin and Tungsten producer in Rwanda. He is also a Director of US Vanadium, a vanadium speciality chemicals company in the US, and TechMet-Mercuria, a critical minerals trading and marketing company based in Switzerland.  Brian is a former Principal and Executive Director of Anglovaal Mining (AVMIN) with extensive base metal, precious metal and ferrous metal interests across Southern Africa, and a former Director of Anglovaal Ltd, a diversified industrial and mining holding company.  Prior to Anglovaal, Brian spent eight years with the De Beers Group

Mark Travers was the Executive Vice President, Vale S.A. and CEO of Base Metals up until the end of 2021. In this position Mark was responsible for Vale’s Base Metals business, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, consisting of nickel and copper operations in Canada, UK, Brazil, Indonesia and Japan. He led Vale’s efforts to transform Base Metals and helped prepare the business and its strategy for the global transition to a net zero economy.

Mark is passionate about sustainability and building a positive social, economic and environmental legacy in the communities where the businesses operated, through responsible mining practices. In his 20 years in the mining industry with Inco Limited and Vale, Mark held progressively senior roles in legal, institutional relations, communications and sustainability, including serving as General Counsel. Prior to joining Vale, Mark was a corporate and securities lawyer practicing in Toronto, Canada.

Mark holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Western Ontario. As well, he holds both a Bachelor of Laws Degree from Osgoode Hall Law School and a Master of Business Administration from York University.

Mark is a registered civil, geotechnical and structural engineer and has been working in heap leaching, tailings management, geotechnical engineering and project/study management since 1979, and in nickel heap leaching since 2005. Mark is recognized as one of the leading geotechnical engineers in the heap leach industry. His nickel experience includes environmental consulting on traditional smelter projects in Guatemala and New Caledonia, peer review and tailings management on HPAL projects and developing heap leaching technology for nickel laterite ores on 17 projects worldwide. Mark has worked for a number of companies including BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Vale, Xstrata, European Nickel, and the major EPCM firms. Mark has published dozens of papers in the field and has taught engineering short courses through universities in eight countries.

Mark was the founding principal and manager of Vector Engineering, Inc., building it from inception to a team of 500 people working in offices across the globe. Vector is a multi-disciplinary engineering and environmental consulting firm working for both local and multi-national clients.

Mark’s project experience in nickel laterites includes work with BHP Billiton in Colombia, Guatemala, Indonesia, New Caledonia, Australia and the Philippines, with European Nickel, also in the Philippines and Turkey, with Xstrata in New Caledonia and with Vale at Vermelho and Piauí.

John is a well-regarded Board Director with extensive experience of bringing Corporate Governance disciplines to Boards of public and private companies alike, having served also on numerous Board committees in a recent career which has focussed particularly on international companies in the Financial Services, Resources and TMT sectors.


He is currently Executive Chairman of Jade Road Investments Limited and a non-executive Director of Golden Rock Global PLC. both of which are companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.


Previously John held senior Director level positions at Racal Electronics and NCR Corporation following an early career in Banking with HSBC and Citibank.