André Sougarret

André Sougarret Larroquete is a Mining Engineer from the University of Chile, with an outstanding professional career of 35 years, mostly at Codelco. After working for a few years in other companies, he joined Codelco in 1993 as a Long-Term Planning Engineer in the El Teniente Division. In that operation, his professional development included the positions of Project Manager, Mine Manager and Deputy General Manager of Operations, the latter position between 2011 and 2012.

In this position he was requested to lead the rescue of the 33 miners trapped in the San José mine, in the Atacama region. Regarding this milestone, Sougarret said: "Rescuing the miners marked my life and has been the most important and rewarding job that I have had to face in my professional stage. It was a great personal satisfaction because I had to help a lot of people". For this successful management leading professionals of different nationalities and companies, Sougarret received various awards, as "Mining Engineer of the Year" in 2010 (Institute of Mining Engineers of Chile, IIMCH), "Engineer of the Year" in 2010 (Engineering Council of Chile) and "Engineer Award for Distinguished Actions" in 2011 (Institute of Engineers of Chile, IICH).

Sougarret was also a professor of Mining at the University of Antofagasta. In 2012 he moved to Antofagasta Minerals, first as general manager of Minera Esperanza, and later in the same position at Minera Centinela. In 2017 he returned to the El Teniente Division of Codelco as general manager until 2018, when he became vice president of the National Mining Company, Enami.

In 2019 he moved to Mexico, where he served as Chief Operating Officer at Fresnillo PLC. After this experience, he returned to Codelco as Vice President of Northern Operations, a position from which he led important challenges in the Northern District, including facing the Covid-19 pandemic while maintaining production levels and taking care of the workers’ health. Also, he led important improvements in productivity, including the modernization plans of some of the operations. In May 2022, he took over as Deputy CEO, a period in which the cessation of the Ventanas smelter was defined, the desalination plant for the Northern District was approved, and the agreement by the Ministry of Finance for the reinvestment of up to 30 % of Codelco's profits between 2021 and 2024 was announced. In August 2022 he was appointed as CEO unanimously by the members of the Corporation's board of directors.

Martín Brenner

Arnoud Busmann

Arnoud Star Busmann is one of the pioneers in the intersection of commodities, finance and blockchain technology. Prior to joining Minehub, he was the Innovation lead for Commodities at ING Bank where he led the cross-industry initiative ‘Easy Trading Connect” that spawned projects like VAKT and komgo. Arnoud is an all-round executive with tech DNA, and has over 20 years experience in strategy execution, enterprise transformation and “blue chip” startups. After obtaining a master’s degree in Computer Science from the Netherlands, he lived and worked across Europe, Asia and Oceania.

Barbara Dischinger

Barbara Dischinger is passionate about the advancement & promotion of women. She set up Women in Mining UK in April 2006  and International Women in Mining in November 2007.

Barbara worked in executive search for 15 years of which 9 years in mining prior to  joining the WISE Campaign (Women in Science and Engineering) in 2015 to advance her knowledge of Diversity & Inclusion, role she held for 4 years. She sat on the steering committee of Women in Rail in the UK from 2015 to 2020.

Since January 2019 she divides her time between the international mentoring programme she helped develop and delivering IWiM’s growth strategy.

Juan Rojas

Andrea Aranguren

Andrea Aranguren is an expert in logistics digitization and supply chain optimization with over a decade of experience in the field.  Currently, Andrea is Head of Waybridge and Americas for Minehub Technologies. Minehub is a leader in the digital transformation of commodity supply chains, making them more efficient, resilient, and sustainable.  Andrea was a co-founder of Waybridge Technologies, which was recently acquired by Minehub.  Andrea has led business development and supply chain optimization efforts for two successful startups and worked at IHS Markit as product manager for a variety of products, including a document digitization and inventory reconciliation tool for physical commodities.  Andrea was also VP of operations and logistics for Goldman Sachs’ physical commodities business for several years. Andrea graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with honors in Economics and received her MBA from Columbia University. Andrea speaks three languages: English, Spanish & Portuguese. She lives in New Jersey with her three kids and her husband.

Hoshi Lu

Hoshi Lu is the General Manager for Vancouver and head of raw materials trading in the Americas for Sumitomo Corporation. He has been with the company since 1995 in a variety of roles, including a secondment as Marketing Manager for KGHM International and Director Mineral Resources.

Carlos Alvarado

Commercial Vice President with more than 25 years of marketing experience in the copper mining industry and in logistics. Successful at leading the commercial team of Codelco, the largest copper producer in the world along with marketing other metals. Leading a multicultural team with offices in China, Singapore, UK, USA, and Chile to successfully commercialize 2 million tons of copper, more than 20.000 tons of molybdenum, rhenium, gold, and silver worldwide

Harry “Red” M. Conger

Harry “Red” Conger was appointed as President and Chief Operating Officer and a Director on the Board on September 30, 2022, having joined Teck in September 2020 as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining Teck, Mr. Conger most recently held the role of President and COO – Americas with Freeport McMoRan. He brings a strong background in operating excellence, financial performance and delivering large-scale projects throughout the Americas. He is a graduate of Colorado School of Mines (B.Sc. Mining Engineering) Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business (Post-Graduate Executive Management Studies) and University of New Hampshire’s Whitmore School of Business and Economics.

Vanessa Davidson

Vanessa Davidson is manager of CRU’s Copper and Wire and Cable teams. She has over 20 years’ experience in evaluating a range of metal markets, including lead, zinc, aluminium, nickel, stainless steel, ferrochrome, and more recently copper. During her time at CRU, Vanessa has managed many marketing studies, cost reports and project feasibility studies. She has also given frequent papers at international conferences.

Vanessa graduated with a degree in Economics in 1985.

Simon Yacoub

Simon Yacoub is Vice President and Mining, Minerals & Metals sector lead for the Americas.  

Based in Santiago, Chile, Simon is currently driving Worley’s transformation agenda to deliver life-of-mine partnership solutions. He is passionate about the role the industry plays in enabling the energy transition, and how to responsibly develop future-facing mineral agendas.  

 His career spans across all major mining provinces – from studies, major projects, field delivery and technology implementation. Prior to his current role, Simon spent 15 years in global project delivery with tier 1 organizations. He also managed Worley’s largest mining account and established their Mongolia business.   

Simon has a deep commitment to a relationship-based business model, including the cultivation of technology and expert solutions to spearhead value creation for mine owners globally.   

Vanessa Torres

Vanessa Torres became our Chief Technical Officer in July 2020. She is responsible for innovation and technology, projects, technical stewardship, global business services and our global Health, Safety and Environment teams. Vanessa joined South32 in August 2018 as Chief Technology Officer. Before this, she was Vice President Operational Infrastructure for BHP Western Australia Iron Ore. She has over 28 years of global mining experience across Australia, Canada, Brazil, Peru and New Caledonia, and has held various senior roles at BHP and Vale in strategy, projects, business development, and operations. Vanessa holds Doctorate and Master degrees in Minerals Engineering from the University of Sao Paulo, and a Bachelor of Science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. She was also a Visiting Scholar at the University of British Columbia, Canada, where her research focused on the application of Artificial Intelligence to the mining industry.

Tristan Attenborough

Tristan Attenborough is Managing Director and Global Industry Head of Energy, Power, Renewables, and Metals & Mining. Tristan joined J.P. Morgan in 1997 and has held numerous leadership roles across the firm in credit risk, client relationship, product and country management.  

Prior to his current role, Tristan was Head of Corporate Sales for J.P. Morgan’s Wholesale Payments (WP) business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Previous to this role Tristan was Head of Client Service and Implementation for TS EMEA where he was responsible for meeting the proactive day-to-day service needs of clients and the end-to-end implementation of new business transactions.  During his career with the firm, he has held positions in the US and Asia Pacific across investment fund credit, foreign exchange and derivative client management and strategic technology investment. This included the role of Country Head for Saudi Arabia based in Riyadh within the TS division.  

Tristan has a dual MBA from London Business School and Columbia Business School in New York.  He holds his undergraduate degree in Operational Research from Lancaster University in the UK.   Tristan is a member of the EMEA Corporate Banking Leadership Team and the WP EMEA Management Team

Juan Esteban Fuentes

Juan Esteban joined CRU in 2006 after six years as Assistant Vice President at Citigroup Chile within the Metals and Mining group, performing risk analysis for the main Chilean mining companies for financial transactions.

Since joining CRU Consulting, Juan Esteban has been involved in developing methodologies to quantify and mitigate risks in mining and mineral processing operations, as well as in market due diligence for Copper, Iron Ore and Fertilizers. Since 2009, Juan Esteban is the Office Manager of CRU Chile.

Juan Esteban holds a BSc in Industrial Civil Engineering from the Catholic University of Chile and is fluent in English and Spanish.

Ariel Mosnaim

As the Payments Head for Chile at J.P. Morgan, Ariel Mosnaim is responsible for the country's Treasury Services and Trade operations. He has been with the bank since 2011 and once served as the Treasury Service Sales Head for the Andean Region and Chile.

Before joining J.P. Morgan, Ariel worked as the Head of Planning & Strategy for Wal-Mart Chile and Head of Sales for LATAM Airlines Loyalty Program. His experience also includes roles in Transactional Banking products, Relationship Management, and Trading desk during a 9-year stint at Citi.

Ariel obtained his undergraduate degree in industrial engineering and a master's in science for engineering from the Universidad Catolica de Chile. He also earned an MBA from Cornell University. Outside of his bank work, Ariel is a director for a community-based non-profit. For the last decade, he’s also been a part-time professor at the Business school of Universidad Adolfo Ibañez. As a Chilean citizen, he is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and English.

Richard Xu

Richard Xu oversees the operations of the International Copper Association’s (ICA) offices in Asia and leads ICA’s Market Strategy program. He values the opportunity to nurture the ICA Asia team and create an environment and culture that allows them to grow personally and professionally. Richard is very proud of the growth of the ICA China team in their professional capabilities and market impact and the development of ICA’s presence in India. Richard appreciates innovative work applying technological developments to address end-use needs, such as Microgroove heat exchangers, copper die-casting and aquaculture. Through technological advancement, he believes that copper-based solutions will continue to hold the key to sustainable development.  

Eric Medel

Eric joined CRU's Base Metals team as a Senior Analyst in January 2022 and is responsible for the costing and emissions of base metals assets, particularly focusing on copper.

He began his career at the Chilean Copper Commission as an intern, where he developed cost models for underground mine works. He then worked for four years as an analyst in a local consulting firm engaged in market research and strategic advisory for the mining and metals sector, particularly in Latin American copper assets.

Eric holds a BSc. in Mining Engineering from the University of Santiago de Chile and a Continuing Education Certificate in Data Analysis from the Universidad del Desarrollo. He is bilingual in Spanish and English and is based in CRU's Santiago office.

Roberto Lecaros

Will Tankard

William joined CRU in 2022 as a Principal Analyst, Base Metals.  He brings 17 years of prior mineral economics research and consulting experience across the base, precious and ferrous metal sectors.

His primary focus is on copper and on helping to further develop CRU’s base metals mining asset Costs and Emissions research capabilities.

Before joining CRU, William managed Wood Mackenzie’s Copper Costs & Emissions work for five years and spent a further 12 years at GFMS/Thomson Reuters holding various roles including Research Director, Mining. 

William is based in our London office and holds a BSc in Natural Sciences from the University of Durham.

Clayton Walker

As Chief Operating Officer for Rio Tinto’s Copper product group, Clayton leads teams with a mission to accelerate Rio Tinto’s growth and decarbonization through our world class copper portfolio - finding better ways to provide materials the world needs.  

Clayton oversees operations and projects across the Americas including Rio Tinto Kennecott – the 120-year-old iconic Utah-based mining and metals business – Resolution Copper – one of the most significant copper deposits today based in Arizona, in addition to leading Rio Tinto Copper’s global Technical function.  

As part of the copper growth strategy, Clayton is responsible for the innovative new NutonTM venture – a portfolio of proprietary copper leach-related technologies and capability – as well as the land and water strategy, to serve our communities best and establish a sustainable path for future generations in the Salt Lake Valley.  

A metallurgical engineer by training combined with an MBA, he has dedicated his career to driving safety, operational excellence, innovation and sustainability in the mining and metals industry, with over 25 years of experience in a variety of operational, commercial, business development and senior leadership roles across commodities and businesses in the Americas, Australia, Europe, and Asia.

Juan Luis Kruger Sayán

Juan Luis Kruger Sayán, es CEO de la División Minera de BRECA desde marzo de 2013. Cuenta con más de 25 años en posiciones de Alta Dirección en compañías multinacionales en el sector minero, telecomunicaciones, aviación comercial y consumo masivo en varios países de América del Sur, así como experiencia en consultoría estratégica en McKinsey.  

Antes de incorporarse a la División Minera fue vicepresidente Ejecutivo de Gold Fields Ltd. para las Américas y CEO de Gold Fields La Cima S.A.A. Previamente a ello, se desempeñó como CEO de LAN Perú S.A. y como CFO de Glencore en las operaciones para la región.  

Juan Luis es también Director y Miembro del Comité Ejecutivo de la Sociedad Nacional de Minería, Petróleo y Energía del Perú y Past President del Comité Sectorial Minero.   Es Graduado en Administración de Empresas de la Universidad del Pacífico, Perú y Master en Administración de Empresas de la Universidad de Harvard, Estados Unidos.    

Juan Luis Kruger Sayán, CEO of the Mining Division of BRECA since March 2013. Mr. Kruger has more than 25 years serving in top management positions in multinational companies in the mining, financial, telecommunications, commercial aviation and consumer goods industries in various countries of America, as well as experience in strategic consulting at McKinsey Co.  

Prior to Minsur, Mr. Kruger was the Executive Vice-President for the Americas of Gold Fields Ltd. and CEO of Gold Fields La Cima S.A. He previously served as CEO of Lan Peru S.A. and, CFO of Glencore´s operations for the region.   

Juan Luis is also Director and member of the Executive Committee of the Sociedad Nacional de Minería, Petróleo y Energía of Perú and Past President of the Mining Sector.  

He holds a degree in Business Administration from Universidad del Pacifico and a Master in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Panos Kotseras

Panos started his career in commercial roles with copper and aluminium fabricators in the early 2000s.

He joined CRU as a copper demand and wire & cable analyst in 2008 and became the lead analyst for cobalt and molybdenum in 2011. Panos moved to Rio Tinto Copper in 2015, working as an analyst and marketing executive in the molybdenum and copper by-product sales and marketing team. He rejoined CRU in 2018 becoming responsible for stainless steel market analysis and price assessment. Since December 2022, Panos has been the Head of Base Metals Demand & Markets at CRU, managing a team of experts covering the copper, zinc, lead, tin and precious metals markets. 

Michèle Brülhart

With over 10 years of experience working on the design, implementation and independent assessment of sustainability standards, Michèle has evaluated and assisted companies at every level of the supply chain—from raw material to end product—and across multiple materials. She was previously the Director of Innovations at the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) and served as the Head of Auditing at RCS Global for several years. Prior to her work at RCS Global, she held roles focused on responsible sourcing at Underwriters Laboratories, the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and STR Responsible Sourcing.Michèle is based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Alice Lim

Alice is the Head of Corporate Sustainability at the London Metal Exchange (LME). Alice’s role involves the creation and execution of sustainability-related strategy at the LME. This includes leading the work on the LME’s net-zero strategy and LMEpassport, a digitals credentials register which LME-listed metal producers to publicly share environmental, social and governance (ESG) certifications and metrics. Alice joined the LME in 2019, having previously worked at Morgan Stanley.

Jinny Yan

Jinny joined ICBC Standard Bank in early 2016 as Chief China Economist, and leads the China markets strategy and research team. Her focus is to deliver China macroeconomic and market insights to internal and external stakeholders. Her team launched the Belt and Road Economic Indices, which offers unique insight into China’s increasing connectivity with emerging economies. She also helps stakeholders to understand more about China’s Interbank Bond Market (CIBM), as it opens further to foreign investor access.

Prior to joining ICBCS, Jinny was a London-based Senior Economist at Standard Chartered Bank. She covered key China-Europe macro topics with a focus on Renminbi internationalisation. Her previous economist roles include covering China based in Shanghai, Europe, and supporting the Chief Economist.

Heading up the European RMB Solutions team, Jinny chaired the Education and Marketing stream of the City of London’s Renminbi initiative. Widely recognised as a China and Renminbi expert in London, she makes frequent appearances in media and at high-level conferences.Jinny studied Economics (BA Hons) at the University of Durham.

Later in her career, she gained her Masters of Development Studies (MSc.) from the London School of Economics.

Graeme Train

Graeme is Head of Metals and Minerals Analysis for Trafigura, a market leader in the global commodities industry. He is responsible for helping to shape the company’s views on metal markets and the economic outlook, with a particular focus on China.

Prior to joining Trafigura in 2015, Graeme lead the China side of Macquarie’s highly regarded commodity research team for five years, publishing research on bulk commodities and metals for institutional investors, corporate clients and the bank’s internal investment and trading teams. The focus of his analysis was on demand & supply balances, price forecasts, supply cost curves and macroeconomics. Graeme started his career at Steel Business Briefing, first as a China Analyst and later as Head of Asia Research.

Graeme holds BA (Hons) in both Mathematics and in Philosophy from the University of York. He is a native English speaker with conversational Chinese.

Vivienne Lloyd

Vivienne Lloyd is the Head of Base Metals Research at Open Mineral. She has spent almost two decades in the base metals market research and analysis fields, with experience in consulting, sell-side research and the provision of strategic intelligence for physical trading.  

Prior to joining Open Mineral, Vivienne started her commodities career at CRU where she spent most of her time in the Copper analysis team, before joining Macquarie Bank’s Commodities Research team as the lead base metals analyst. Most recently she was Head of Zinc and Lead Research at Trafigura.

Vivienne holds a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Manchester.

Speaker to be announced, Fitch Ratings