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Dr Matthew James appointed new CEO of Euro Manganese

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Euro Manganese (ASX:EMN) has a new CEO, Dr Matthew James, who takes the helm at closely followed EMN with a solid background working with small growth companies and global industrials.

Dr James has worked within the environmental services, natural resources and chemicals industries, making him ideally suited to pilot Euro Manganese through the next stage in its growth.

Regular readers of The Armchair Trader will know of Euro Manganese as the developer of the landmark Chvaletice manganese reprocessing project in the Czech Republic. The company is focused on processing tailings from an historic Czech mine to extract high purity manganese. It represents an important potential raw material for Europe’s next generation battery manufacturing capacity.

Dr. James will succeed Marco Romero, the founder of Euro Manganese and one of its largest shareholders. Romero will relinquish his executive role with effect from January 4th and will step down as a director of the board. He will continue as an advisor to Euro Manganese, assisting with the transition to Dr. James and on the generation of potential growth opportunities for the company, in line with the board’s strategy.

“There is international consensus to dramatically reduce the world’s carbon footprint, driven by governments, investors and consumers,” said Dr. James. “The electrification of vehicles is an important part of the solution and has been embraced by the automotive industry and consumers alike, with rapidly increasing global production forecasts. However, the supply of the enabling raw materials needs to match this demand in ways that are both environmentally and socially responsible.”

Dr James has extensive experience in developing companies within the global natural resource industry. As Vice President, Strategy & Corporate Communications at Lynas Corporation, a specialty metals company, he played an instrumental role raising over A$1 billion of equity and debt funding, including a US$250 million government backed loan and over US$800 million of long-term advanced sales contracts from Japanese, European, and US industrial companies across the automotive, chemical, and engineering sectors.

During Dr James’ time at Lynas, from 2002 to 2011, the company grew from a junior miner with an undeveloped project to an ASX100 Company with a market capitalisation of approximately A$3.5 billion, with mining operations in Australia and chemical plant operations in Malaysia.

In 2011, Dr. James became the founding Managing Director of Rutila Resources, where he negotiated the purchase of a vanadium-titanium-magnetite deposit and secured native title agreements and new Western Australia port infrastructure licences in the Pilbara. Rutila was acquired by Todd Corporation in 2014.

Upon returning to the UK in 2014, Dr. James led a strategic growth consultancy focused on natural resources, materials and environmental services. From 2017 to 2020, he was Vice President of Strategy and Business Development on the executive leadership team at Harsco Corporation, a global industrial environmental services company.

2022 is going to be an important year of performance milestones for Euro Manganese, including the delivery of the company’s Demonstration Plant, completion of its Definitive Feasibility Study and the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, customer acceptance testing and off-take contracts, and the commencement of project financing discussions.

Listen: Podcast with Marco Romero, Founder of Euro Manganese

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This article does not constitute investment advice. Do your own research or consult a professional advisor.

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