WINNING the top job at Extract Resources earlier this year was a dream come true for Jonathan Leslie.
He has taken charge of one of the world's largest undeveloped uranium deposits.
Leslie joined the emerging miner in March, six months after former chief executive Peter McIntyre was forced to stand down to stop a public dispute with major shareholder Kalahari Minerals.
Leslie, a former director of Rio Tinto, was headhunted for the top role because of his experience at the global giant, which included responsibility for uranium sales.
He takes charge of a company in the final stages of a transformation from junior explorer into major producer, a task he is tackling head on.
"Because of my history, with the marketing background and global experience, I thought it was too close not to express some interest in the job," Leslie says.
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Extract started out in late 2003 as a back-door listing through a gold project.
Its involvement in its flagship uranium mine in Namibia began with a 51 per cent stake in the licences, with London Stock Exchange-listed Kalahari Minerals holding the remaining interest.
The junior's original focus was copper, but with the tenements neighbouring Rio's massive Rossing uranium mine, Extract soon decided to sell its gold assets and focus purely on uranium.
"The main role for me is to move Extract from an exploration company to a producer, which is a very different beast," Leslie says.
"That is why it is important to look at my track record and look at the team we are building in Namibia. We have that capability now.
"It was the Namibian context that attracted me. This truly is a world-class deposit and at Rio that was what we always wanted to do. So, for a junior to have its hands on one of these is very exciting."
London-based Leslie had an unusual introduction to the mining industry.
He started out as a barrister and entered the sector as a lawyer for Rio.
He looked after the legal issues surrounding Rio's uranium interests, including dealing with a fire at Rio's Rossing mine in Namibia, before moving to strategic planning and then running operations for the major.
"I joined Rio at around the age of 27 and didn't know much about mining then," Leslie says.
But working for Rio around the world, from Zimbabwe to Melbourne and Salt Lake City, fast-tracked his education.
"I had exposure to a huge range of operations," he says.
"It is a fantastically exciting sector. You see some amazing places. What is rewarding is the amount of work you do in local communities.
"It is important to embed yourself in the local community and it is extraordinarily worthwhile."
Besides mining the land, his work involves supporting local communities with basic amenities.
Extract says the mine has the potential to produce 15 million pounds of uranium oxide a year, which would make it the world's second largest, behind BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam mine in South Australia.
The scale of the project has attracted widespread interest in the company.
Rio purchased a 15 per cent stake in Extract at the end of 2008 and also holds an interest in Kalahari Minerals, whose main investment is a 41 per cent interest in Extract.
On Friday, Extract announced that Japanese trading house Itochu had secured a 10.3 per cent stake in the emerging miner. The share purchase increased Itochu's interest in the Rossing South mine, as it had already purchased a 14.9 per cent stake in Kalahari Minerals.
Leslie in undaunted by the heavyweights banking on his success.
"It shows what an important resource it is," he says.
"If no one was paying us any attention, you might feel disappointed."
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