Perseus Mining Ltd has strengthened its corporate position in Africa through the appointment of eminent South African citizen and highly experienced African mining executive Rick Menell as an independent non-executive director with immediate effect.
The company expects to benefit greatly from Menell’s experience gained in a business career spanning more than 40 years and involving senior leadership roles in a range of major African-based resources companies.
“Perfectly suited”
Perseus chairman and CEO Jeff Quartermaine said: “On behalf of the board of Perseus, I am extremely pleased to welcome Rick Menell to the board of our company.
"Rick is a very high calibre individual whose diverse work and life experiences will bring new perspectives that will be invaluable in helping Perseus reach its full potential.
"His deep understanding of the people and the mining industry on the African continent is perfectly suited to joining the leadership team of a growing, African focused company like Perseus, that has ambitions to become a leader of the gold mining industry on the continent.”
Industry experience
Trained originally as an exploration geologist at Cambridge and Stanford universities, Menell worked as a geologist in Canada, USA and South Africa before spending time as an investment banker for the mining industry in New York and Australia with JP Morgan.
After being an executive director for Delta Gold in Australia working on new gold mines in Australia and gold and platinum projects in Zimbabwe, he returned to South Africa in 1991 and rejoined the mining industry there as finance director for diversified mining company Anglovaal Mining.
African involvement
He led Anglovaal Mining from 1996 as CEO and then executive chairman until 2004. During this time, he managed the restructuring, transformation and modernisation of the group, including major investments in new platinum, gold, manganese, chrome, iron ore, coal and nickel mines in South Africa, new ferrochrome and ferromanganese smelters in South Africa and investments in copper and cobalt mining, smelting and refining in Zambia.
This work continued when he merged Anglovaal with Patrice Motsepe’s ARM to form African Rainbow Minerals, where he remained deputy chairman, and also CEO of subsidiary Teal Mining and Exploration Inc, until he left the group in 2008.
Leadership roles
Until 2011, Menell also served as president of the SA Minerals Council, chairman of Tourism SA, chairman of Bateman Engineering, deputy chairman of Harmony Gold and of Associated Manganese Mines, and a director of Standard Bank Group, Telkom South Africa and Mutual & Federal Insurance.
A Fellow of the Geological Society (London), and of the SAIMM and the AusIMM, Menell has also been a director of the World Gold Council, senior advisor to the WTO, the IOM and a Mining Council member for the World Economic Forum.
In 2011, he joined Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN) investment banking group as a senior advisor, working on transactions in all sectors and throughout sub-Saharan Africa, leaving the group on its merger with UBS in 2023.
He has retained an active involvement in leadership in the mining and mining supplies industries, retiring recently as deputy chairman of Gold Fields Ltd and as senior independent director of the Weir Group (LON:WEIR) (UK).
Menell remains an independent non-executive director at Sibanye-Stillwater Limited, a precious and energy-transition metals mining company listed in Johannesburg and New York, having served for several years as lead independent director.
Active in non-profit sector
As well as the mining-related roles, Menell has also been active throughout his career in the non-profit sector, serving on numerous boards including the Business Trust, the NBI, BLSA and the CDE, all in South Africa.
He is founding co-chairman of City Year South Africa youth service organisation, a trustee of the Foundation at the University of the Western Cape and a member of the Advisory Board of the African Leadership Academy.
His activities focus on secondary, tertiary and post tertiary education and on active citizenship such as the SA Solidarity Fund, where he served as a full-time volunteer executive in a team dealing with health and humanitarian consequences of the COVID pandemic.
He headed a funding effort that has raised about US$250 million in support of urgent programs for everyone in need, both citizens and non-citizens.
A recent activity in the non-profit sector has been involvement in the founding and funding of a similar new initiative last year - the Resource Mobilization Fund, set up at the request of the South African President to engage the private sector to assist in dealing with the enormous national challenges of power and water supply, failing transport infrastructure and eroding rule of law through public-private partnerships.