Leadership Team

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 focussed on projects which produce, process or recycle these “Technology Metals”, and currently has operations in North America, South America, and Africa.

Brian is also the principal of the Kemet Group. Kemet is a private group which invests in a range of natural resource projects in East, Central and West Africa, ranging from base metals and gold, to forestry and agri-industry. The group also advises certain governments on resource policy and strategic transactions.

Brian serves as a Director of Tinco Investments Ltd, an integrated Tin and Tungsten producer in Rwanda. He is also a Director or Li-Cycle, the biggest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America, and serves as a Director of US Vanadium, a vanadium specialty chemicals company in the US. 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.

Mike is a chartered mining engineer with over 25 years’ experience in the mining industry and has extensive nickel laterite project development experience. He began his career with Billiton PLC, working on corporate planning and mine development projects. In 1999 Mike began work with European Nickel as its project manager completing concept studies for the application of heap leaching technology to the Albanian nickel laterite deposits.


Mike then led the Çaldağ Feasibility in Turkey which included the start-up of a profitable direct shipped ore mining operation and the successful completion of the Bankable Feasibility Study which help secure US$ 360 million of debt and equity investment to build the project. He then oversaw initial construction activities at the project before leading the Acoje nickel laterite heap leach project pre-Feasibility Study in the Philippines. This was completed in 2008 when he then became European Nickel’s Business Development Manager.

Following the merger of European Nickel with its joint venture partner at Acoje and the company’s decision to focus on the development of that project, Mike left to set up Alyssum Ventures to build a new company dedicated to nickel laterite heap leaching.


Mike has visited and studied over 20 of the known nickel laterite projects in the world in Indonesia, the USA, Russia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Greece, Turkey, the Philippines, New Caledonia, Kazakhstan, and Poland. Mike has worked extensively in Latin and South America including projects in Surinam, Chile, and Mexico.

Anne is a chartered metallurgical engineer from the Royal School of Mines, London and has over 25 years’ experience in the natural resources sector. Anne has been involved in nickel heap leach and project development work in over 40 different nickel laterite deposits in 15 countries. She is also a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum in London where she contributes industrial advice to fundamental nickel and cobalt research.

Anne began her career working at international engineering companies Technip and ABB Lummus before moving onto ENK Plc in 2003. At ENK Anne was the Group Technology Manager and was responsible for the design, construction and operation of the Çaldag˘ pilot heap leach and downstream processing facility in Turkey. Anne lead a team of international and local metallurgists and operators in the plant operation to provide all the metallurgical design criteria for the full-scale operation. Anne later set up a team in the Philippines to do the same at a newly constructed pilot heap leach facility for the Acoje feasibility study.

Following her departure from ENK in 2010 Anne co-founded Alyssum ventures to further develop and commercialise nickel laterite heap leaching technology.

Anne is a Mentor for the International Women in Resources Mentorship program launched in 2018.

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.

Calum Semple serves as the Operating Executive for RCF Management L.L.C. (RCF). He is a Chartered Engineer and holds a BSc (Hons) in Engineering from Edinburgh and is a Member of the Canadian Institute of Mining. He is a U.K. and Canadian citizen.

Prior to RCF he has held a number for senior roles in the mining industry, most recently as EVP Ops and a Director on the TMAC Resources board and technical committees. He also serves on the board of RG Gold.  In addition to 20 years in industry leadership positions around the world, Calum also spent 14 years as MD and Senior Partner for Global Mining Consulting at PwC. His specialisation throughout his career has been the start-up of new businesses, M&A and turnaround.

Mike is a chartered mining engineer with over 25 years’ experience in the mining industry and has extensive nickel laterite project development experience. He began his career with Billiton PLC, working on corporate planning and mine development projects. In 1999 Mike began work with European Nickel as its project manager completing concept studies for the application of heap leaching technology to the Albanian nickel laterite deposits.


Mike then led the Çaldağ Feasibility in Turkey which included the start-up of a profitable direct shipped ore mining operation and the successful completion of the Bankable Feasibility Study which help secure US$ 360 million of debt and equity investment to build the project. He then oversaw initial construction activities at the project before leading the Acoje nickel laterite heap leach project pre-Feasibility Study in the Philippines. This was completed in 2008 when he then became European Nickel’s Business Development Manager.

Following the merger of European Nickel with its joint venture partner at Acoje and the company’s decision to focus on the development of that project, Mike left to set up Alyssum Ventures to build a new company dedicated to nickel laterite heap leaching.


Mike has visited and studied over 20 of the known nickel laterite projects in the world in Indonesia, the USA, Russia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Greece, Turkey, the Philippines, New Caledonia, Kazakhstan, and Poland. Mike has worked extensively in Latin and South America including projects in Surinam, Chile, and Mexico.

Anne is a chartered metallurgical engineer from the Royal School of Mines, London and has over 25 years’ experience in the natural resources sector. Anne has been involved in nickel heap leach and project development work in over 40 different nickel laterite deposits in 15 countries. She is also a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum in London where she contributes industrial advice to fundamental nickel and cobalt research.

Anne began her career working at international engineering companies Technip and ABB Lummus before moving onto ENK Plc in 2003. At ENK Anne was the Group Technology Manager and was responsible for the design, construction and operation of the Çaldag˘ pilot heap leach and downstream processing facility in Turkey. Anne lead a team of international and local metallurgists and operators in the plant operation to provide all the metallurgical design criteria for the full-scale operation. Anne later set up a team in the Philippines to do the same at a newly constructed pilot heap leach facility for the Acoje feasibility study.

Following her departure from ENK in 2010 Anne co-founded Alyssum ventures to further develop and commercialise nickel laterite heap leaching technology.

Anne is a Mentor for the International Women in Resources Mentorship program launched in 2018.

Paul is a business executive and lawyer with over 30 years’ experience of driving new business and legal initiatives for FTSE 100 companies (or overseas equivalents) in the infrastructure and mining businesses. Paul is an experienced international negotiator, who has managed major acquisitions & disposals of quoted and non-quoted companies. Paul has spent much of his career in the mining industry, including 12 years at Rio Tinto and subsequently as Group General Counsel at BHP Billiton where he played a leading role in the $36 billion merger between Billiton and BHP.

Between 2003 and 2012, Paul was a non-executive director of ENK Plc (formerly European Nickel Plc), an emerging mid-tier nickel laterite producer with assets in Turkey, the Philippines, and Albania.. As non-executive director and pre-listing shareholder of European Nickel Plc, Paul was a member of the team that successfully floated the company on AIM in March 2004.

Between 2005 and 2013, Paul was Executive Chairman of Churchill Airports, a private company which acquired and turned around small to medium sized regional airports, principally in Europe. With the financial backing of Barclays Capital, Balfour Beatty and others, Paul and the Churchill team have overseen the successful acquisition of three airports, one in Germany, one in the Czech Republic, and Blackpool Airport in the UK. Paul and the Churchill team also advised JP Morgan and other leading players in the sector.

Adrian Harvey is an experienced chief financial officer with a corporate background spanning 28 years in natural resources, energy and international power engineering projects, working in both public company and operational management in the UK, Asia, USA, Africa and India. During the last 14 years he has been involved in five admissions to AIM and LSE Premium Segment and has managed all financial aspects pre and post-IPO including equity placings, debt funding, listing and subsequent corporate and financial management. He commenced his corporate career with BTR plc as Business Controller of its Hawker Siddeley Electric Power Group, managing a portfolio of UK and international power generation projects, before moving into mine equipment engineering and clean energy businesses as chief financial officer or finance director.

In 2004 Adrian joined AIM-listed Toledo Mining Corporation plc as chief financial officer and company secretary. Adrian then joined the team which floated the Kazak oil and gas E&P business, Max Petroleum plc on AIM, spending five years with Max as group financial controller and company secretary.

Adrian is a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants.

Omar is a Metallurgical Engineer from the “Universidad Industrial de Santander” (Industrial University of Santander) in Colombia with over 20 years of experience in the mining industry. Omar started his career working for BHP Billiton in Colombia, where he stayed for 14 years working on process engineering, information management systems, business improvement (six sigma projects), business and production planning, corporate reporting, cost controlling, and business and investment valuation.


During his last five years at BHP Billiton, he played a leadership role in the escalation of heap leach concepts as applied to nickel laterite ores. In 2011, Omar joined Rio Tinto in its copper project division in the US, where he was responsible for the industrial scale demonstration of the heap leaching of chalcopyrite dominant copper ores. In 2015, Omar joined Brazilian Nickel as Project Manager and led the team to re-design, refurbish. commission and operate the Piaui Nickel Project demonstration plant.

Guilherme is a registered engineer with 20 years’ experience in the mining and infrastructure industry. While a Director at Potássio do Brasil, he was in charge of the development of the Autazes Potash Project in the Amazon, Guilherme went on to become President and was responsible for marketing development, public affairs, licencing and ESG standards. Prior to this, he was a General Manager at Vale, implementing the development of a new management and performance system and supporting an estimated investment plan of US$50 billion. His earlier work at Vale included construction management and business development of the 118 Copper Project, Cristalino Copper Project, Niquel do Vermelho and Salobo Copper Project, mainly in the Amazon region. Additionally, within Guilherme’s career he began the construction of the Onça Puma Nickel Project, where he was responsible to plan and control the overall enterprise, including managing multiple contractors with an investment of US$2.3 billion and 9,000 workers

Ailton is a qualified Certified Professional Accountant and holds an MBA in Financial Control from Sao Paulo. Ailton is Brazilian, and fluent in English. He joined Piauí Niquel Metais (“PNM”) in June 2014 and has held the position of Financial Manager and acting Company Secretary and has been responsible for all aspects of financial control and accounting for the Piaui project. He has gained international business exposure on Foreign Trade and Commercial Missions to China and Europe. His professional career includes working in 2013 on the turn around at Carpathian Gold’s Mineradora Riacho dos Machados project, where he was involved in cash and working capital management and sovereign debt negotiation, and a further fifteen years in other Brazilian industrial,mining and commercial sectors working in corporate finance, cost and tax restructuring, planning and implementation.

Marcelo is a Brazilian biologist with an MBA in Project Management (PMBOK) with over 15 years of experience in Environmental & Social studies and permitting in Brazil.

He began his career performing flora surveys and forest inventories throughout Brazil, and South America. In 2010 Marcelo joined Arcadis SA, a global consulting company, to coordinate the development of technical studies (such as Environmental and Social Impact Assessments) to support the environmental permitting of projects. By 2013 he was the Project Manager & Technical Reviewer for the permitting of several projects in various sectors such as Energy, Industry, Agriculture, and later focusing on Mining (for companies such as Vale, Anglo American and Samarco). In August 2016 Marcelo joined Piauí Níquel Metais as Environmental and Institutional Relations Manager.

Rogério has a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

With 30 years of experience in management, operation and maintenance of industrial plants, automation, people management and greenfield projects, working in several locations distributed in three continents.

His career was developed in companies such as Votorantim, VALE and Holcim.

In August 2021, Rogério joined Piauí Níquel Metais (PNM) as Production Manager.

Cecília holds a degree in Psychology from the Federal University of Uberlândia and a postgraduate degree in Business Administration and Business Pedagogy.

She has 18 years of experience in the human resource area in both the tourism and mining segments. Cecília has worked with VALE and BAMIN, where she had the opportunity to develop activities in mining companies in phases of operation and green field projects.

In January  2021, Cecília  joined Piauí Níquel Metais (PNM) to lead the Human Resources department.