Hi there Gwaihir,Two thoughts;1, I worked for a few years in a...

Hi there Gwaihir,

Two thoughts;
1, I worked for a few years in a services company who is headquartered in London and I think listed in the UK. I live in far away NZ. The company had, like general managers and local mangers in NZ - they have multiple contracts in many countries. Large resources companies are headquartered in USA or CHINA or even little Aussie, but they run individual operations in different countries. Soon , LEO will be running projects located in different countries IMO.

and

2, The company has been quite proactive in employing as many local people as possible. They always point out the ratio - which is I think about 95% local employees ? including sub contractors? anyhow, the local employee number percentage is very high compared to overall company and contractor employee numbers. I take your point(s) about management. However it could also be very important for the company to demonstrate to Mali Govt. that Mali local domiciled people are employed in leadership and governance roles as well as the blue collar. So my point is that yes its important to have these types of people, but it might not actually be a good look to send a handful of people 'from your beloved Perth', to oversee stuff and live in Mali - like overlord's (which in Mali persons minds, may remind themselves how control was exerted from overseas in the past...)

Below are copies from our web site of two Managers who I presume both live in Mali;

Seydou Semega
General Manager West AfricaMr Semega oversees the company’s expanding footprint in West Africa, with responsibility for both building and optimising an extensive logistics network that covers Mali, Cote d’Ivoire and potentially other countries in West Africa. He also manages governmental and other key stakeholder matters in Mali.Mr Semega holds a Management and Business Administration degree from the University of Poitiers in France and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Batna in Algeria.Mr Semega previously worked in the US Agency for International Development for six years where he served as a representative for West-Africa and Chairman of the Foreign Service Nationals Advocacy Council, with a constituent base of over 5,000 employees.

Bolaji Okubajo
Project ManagerBolaji Okubajo commenced as Project Manager for the Goulamina Lithium Project in June 2022. His role is to build and lead the owners’ team and oversee the EPCM for stages one and two.Bolaji has a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Lagos, Masters in Civil Engineering from the University of London and a Masters in Business Administration from the Imperial College Business School. He has more than 12 years’ experience in delivering mining, rail and infrastructure projects in senior roles in the United Kingdom, Middle East and Africa including Guinea, South Africa, Burkina Faso and Liberia. Recent mining roles include, Project Engineering Manager on the Nimba Iron Ore Project in Guinea, Project Director for Wood on Kinross’ Tasiast Optimisation Project Stage two and Contracts Manager for Lycopodium on SEMAFO’s Natougou Gold Project.


However, Looking at our board, there is no one who domiciles in Mali?. A huge factor here is, and often refereed to by other posters (Woody?), that the hard rock Lithium game requires very specialist people. So that must always be the priority. I do however see a huge opportunity to get at least a couple of local Mali domiciled people onto the board as perhaps NED's - I'm sure there must be enough qualified directors who live say in Bamako? Given the company has made it clear that expansion into other projects is a priority and that its quite likely that some of those may be in West African locations, then...

ALL IMO