Directors and Management
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
CHAIRMAN
Robert Besley
Robert Besley has more than 40 years’ experience in the mining industry and has served on a number of ASX listed mining company boards over the past 30 years. Mr Besley has also served in a number of Government advisory roles including several years as Deputy Chairman of the NSW Minerals Council. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Economic Geology from the University of Adelaide and he is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists. He managed the creation, listing and operation of two successful mining companies; CBH Resources Limited which he led as Managing Director from a small exploration company to Australia’s 4th largest zinc producer; and Australmin Holdings Limited (acquired by Newcrest) which brought into production a gold mine in WA and mineral sands mine in NSW. More recently, he was a founding Director of KBL Mining Limited which operated the Mineral Hill copper-gold mine in NSW and Chairman of Silver City Minerals Limited, which actively explored for silver-lead-zinc in the Broken Hill District. He has been a Non-Executive Director of Murray Zircon from commencement of development and production of the Mindarie Mineral Sands Project. Prior to this, Mr Besley’s early career was involved in the exploration and development of mineral deposits for Unocal’s (now Chevron) mineral activities in S.E. Asia, North America, Latin America, Australia and the Pacific. His activities have covered projects in precious metals, base metals, ferroalloys, mineral sands, speciality metals, uranium and coal. Through his corporate management roles Mr Besley has played a central role in project and corporate financing covering a wide range of capital structures as well as acquisitions, mergers and asset sales.
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Patrick Mutz
Patrick Mutz has more than thirty years of international mining industry experience in technical (metallurgist), managerial, consulting and executive roles in all aspects of the industry from exploration through project development, mining and mine rehabilitation. He has operational experience in open cut, underground, and in-situ mining and related processing, on projects in the USA, Germany, Africa and Australia. Since his arrival in Australia from the USA in 1998, he has served as CEO / Managing Director of a number of publicly listed and private mining companies based in South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia, primarily involved with project development and company transitioning from exploration to production. Mr Mutz is a Fellow of the AusIMM and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) and an MBA from the University of Phoenix in the US. Patrick joined Murray Zircon as a senior advisor in early 2012 and served as its Chief Operating Officer during the pivotal transition period from development to operational status in the latter part of 2012. In February 2013 he was invited to take on the role as CEO and to lead the company on its goal of becoming South Australia’s newest mineral sands mining company.
NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Chong Veoy (Aaron) Soo
Mr Soo has been a long term supporter and shareholder in Image. Mr Soo is an advocate and solicitor practising in West Malaysia with 16 years of experience in legal practice and is currently a partner in Stanley Ponniah, Ng & Soo, Advocates & Solicitors.
NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Peter Thomas
Peter Thomas having served on ASX listed company boards for some 30 years, has been a non-executive director of Image since 10 April 2002. He resigned as Chair on 29 October 2014. For over 30 years until June 2011, Mr Thomas ran a legal practice on his own account specialising in the delivery of wide ranging legal, corporate and commercial advice to listed explorers and miners. Mr Thomas currently a director of listed companies Emu NL and Middle Island Resources Limited and recently of Magnetic Resources NL (resigned July 2013) and Meteoric Resources NL (resigned September 2014).
NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Ran Xu
Ms Ran Xu has a masters degree in HR Management and Industrial Relations. She started working in LB Group in 2014 as a Procurement and Strategy VP and is now the Associate President of Strategy. Ms Xu has extensive experience and market intelligence in the ilmenite and pigment industry. She has not been a director of any other listed companies in the past 3 years.
NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Winston Lee
Winston Lee is the CEO of Vestpro International Limited, a commodity holding company, with assets under management including major stakes in private and publicly listed mining companies. Mr. Lee is establishing a position in the global mining industry through investments, operations, and explorations in North America, Asia and Africa. He has 7 years of experience in developing international cooperation with resource companies as well as investments in heavy metal, healthcare and other natural resources. He led the Research and Development department of Zipro Technology Corporation, collaborating with professors and the Dean of Engineering at National Taiwan University. Mr. Lee serves as Head of Finance of an AI driven simulation platform company and plays a central role covering a wide range of capital and legal structures as well as asset sales. The company owns patents involving Virtual Matter and Virtual Environments. Mr. Lee is a passionate patron of the arts supporting emerging contemporary artists.
SENIOR MANAGEMENT
EXECUTIVE ADVISOR - EXPLORATION
George Sakalidis
George Sakalidis is an exploration geophysicist with over 30 years’ industry experience. His career has included extensive gold, diamond, base metals and mineral sands exploration. Mr Sakalidis has been involved in a number of significant mineral discoveries, including the Three Rivers and Rose gold deposits, the Dongara Mineral Sands Deposits, the Boonanarring-Gingin South-Helene Mineral Sands Deposits in Western Australia and he was involved in the tenement applications over the Silver Swan nickel deposit. He was also involved with the tenement application for the recently discovered Monty Copper mineralisation adjacent to the Degrussa Copper deposit. He is a founding Director and was an Executive Director of Image (since listing 4 July 2002 to 29 May 2020) and Meteoric Resources NL (since listing on 16 July 2004). Mr Sakalidis has also been a founding director of ASX listed companies Emu NL, Magnetic Minerals Limited (taken over by Ticor in 2003), Magnetic Resources NL and Potash West NL.
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER AND JOINT COMPANY SECRETARY
John McEvoy
John has over 25 years experience in the mining industry having held senior finance roles in both the public and private sector. John has experience in the full mining project lifecycle including project identification/review, mergers & acquisitions, equity/debt financings, project optimisation and asset disposals. John previously held senior finance roles at Barrack Mines (Gold/Copper), Asarco Australia (Gold), Wiluna Mines Limited (Gold), Moly Mines (Moly/Copper) and RZM/Cable Sands Group (Mineral Sands). John was appointed as CFO at Image Resources in October 2014 and Joint Company Secretary in July 2020.
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
Todd Colton
Mining professional with over 30 years’ experience in the mining industry, predominately in the mineral sands industry with a number of publicly listed and private mining companies based in Western Australia, South Australia and overseas providing operational, technical and management support for project development and mining operations. Todd has held operational and senior management roles through feasibility studies, operations planning and design, construction and commercial production.
JOINT COMPANY SECRETARY
Dennis Wilkins
Dennis Wilkins is the founder and principal of DWCorporate Pty Ltd, a leading privately held corporate advisory firm servicing the natural resources industry. Since 1994 he has been a director of, and involved in the executive management of, several publicly listed resource companies with operations in Australia, PNG, Scandinavia and Africa. From 1995 to 2001 he was the Finance Director of Lynas Corporation Ltd during the period when the Mt Weld Rare Earths project was acquired by the group. He was also founding director and advisor to Atlas Iron Limited at the time of Atlas’ initial public offering in 2006. Since July 2001 he has been running DWCorporate Pty Ltd, where he advises on the formation of, and capital raising for, emerging companies in the Australian resources sector. He is currently a director of Key Petroleum Limited.
AUDIT COMMITTEE
As from 27 May 2021, the members of the Audit Committee are Messrs Peter Thomas (Chair), Aaron Soo and Robert Besley.
REMUNERATION COMMITTEE
As from 27 May 2021, the members of the Remuneration Committee are Messrs Robert Besley (Chair) and Peter Thomas.