Ann: Resignation of Managing Director, page-139

After a life in mining companies - the majority of successful production miners are run by financiers and to a lesser degree engineers and occassionally metallurgists who later add the finance/markets skillset.

whereas successful pre-cashflow explorers is dominated by geologists

Barrick Gold swallowed Placer Dome because Placer was run by technicians - brilliant brilliant technicians.

Markets experts with related finance skills know how to position a company to benefit from the volatile trend shifts int heir commodities - their stocks do better as a result and they see ahead better

technicians are an absolute must for operations - but very few have quality foresight into economics and metals future outlooks - and thats the key to producer stock sp outcomes

Even if a technician sits at MD level - they still rely on technicans below them to deliver construction/production etc on time to spec.

never say never to any individual being a great CEO - there have been successes drawn from every quarter

but if you had to have only one talent at the top of the tree - its the ability to forecast what metal prices will do, position for that ahead of time - and convey it to the market so the sp benefits from recignition of that foresight

Twiggy Forrest is probably your best recent example of this