Mark Wellings was appointed Chairman in September 2021 and joins Li-Metal bringing with him over 25 years experience in the global mining industry and mining finance sector.
Mr. Wellings held several senior capital market roles including Principal at INFOR Financial Group and Managing Director, Investment Banking at GMP Securities LP (GMP). During his 18 years at GMP, he co-founded the firm’s corporate finance mining practice and advised on some of the largest mining deals in Canada, working on both equity financings and M&A transactions.
From 1988 to 2004, Mr. Wellings held a number of roles with a variety of companies including, Drry, Michener, Booth & Wahl, Arimco NL, Inco Ltd. and Watts GriffisMcOuat, acquiring valuable hands-on experience in exploration, development and production. Mr. Welling is a professional engineer and holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree from the University of Windsor and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario.
Maciej Jastrzebski joined Li-Metal in 2018 as co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. With 15 years of experience, Mr. Jastrzebski has worked in technology development, project engineering, IP protection and technology commercialization with Hatch Ltd., Barrick Gold Corporation, AuTec and Li-Metal. A natural innovator, Maciej is a named inventor on 15 patent families in a variety of fields and the author of a number of technical publications. Mr. Jastrzebski is a professional engineer and holds a Bachelor degree of Applied Science and a Master degree of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto.
Tim Johnston joined Li-Metal in 2018 as co-founder and Executive Chairman. With more than 15 years of experience, he has overseen the development and operation of batteries, metals, industrial minerals, and large infrastructure assets. Prior to Li-Metal, Mr. Johnston served as CEO and President of Desert Lion Energy, a junior mining company operating lithium mines in Namibia. Mr. Johnston has also held progressively senior positions during his 10-year tenure at Hatch, working as a senior consultant specialiizing in project management and transactional analysis for their global lithium business. During his time with Hatch, he evaluated hundreds of lithium projects, and managed the development of lithium projects around the world for SQM, Rockwood Lithium (Albemarle), Bacanora Minerals, AMG-NV, Rio Tinto, Galaxy Resources and other key developers.
Mr. Johnston currently holds the role of Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Li-Cycle Holdings. He has co-authored 7 technical publications with a focus on project execution in the lithium sector. Mr. Johnston is a chartered professional engineer (CPEng) and CFA charter holder.
Anthony Tse joined Li-Metal as a non-executive director in 2021, bringing with him over 25 years of corporate private and public company experience in numerous high-growth industries such as technology, media and telecoms, as well as in resources and commodities, where he has held various senior management, corporate finance, capital markets and M&A roles across Greater China and the Asia Pacific region. His previous senior roles include positions at News Corporation’s STAR TV, the Deputy General Manager of TOM Online, Director of Corporate Development at Hutchison Whampoa’s TOM Group, President of China Entertainment Television and CEO of CSN Corp. Mr. Tse is currently Executive Director of Galaxy Resources Limited, a leading ASX-listed lithium producer. He joined the Board at Galaxy Resources in 2010 and, from June 2013 to July 2019, served as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer during the corporate turnaround and growth stage.
Ernie Ortiz joined Li-Metal as a non-executive director in 2021. He currently holds the role of President and Managing Director of LRC, a position he has held since 2018. Prior to joining LRC in 2018, Mr. Ortiz was an investment analyst at a US based equity fund where he specialized in lithium, battery materials and specialty chemicals. Prior to this, he worked at Credit Suisse where he was the lead associate in the basic materials group, where he led the research and due diligence on lithium, which called for the imbalance between supply and demand the market faced in 2016/2017. Mr. Ortiz sits on the London Metal Exchange (LME) Lithium Advisory Committee and has been quoted in Reuters and the Wall Street Journal for comments on the lithium market. Ernie holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Chicago and holds the CFA designation.
Mr. Farrell joined the Li-Metal Board of Directors in January 2022, previously serving as an advisor on the company’s advisory board and brings with him over 40 years of wide professional experience, including commercial, technical and policy, leadership experience. He has successfully started up and led several tax and non-tax teams in various groups at PwC. Until his retirement from PwC in 2018, Mr. Farrell was a member of PwC’s Hong Kong and China disruption and investment group, PwC’s Tax Policy Panel, PwC’s China/Hong Kong advisory committee on insurance and human resources matters, PwC Hong Kong’s Foundation and PwC Hong Kong/China’s Corporate Responsibility committee, and on a major multinational corporation’s global tax advisory council. He was also a member of PwC China/Hong Kong’s Future of Tax committee.
In addition, Mr. Farrell has leadership and start-up involvement in Hong Kong and China in human resources, corporate recovery, and cross-discipline teams. He has a broad range of client experience in tax and non-tax consulting and execution matters such as market entry, e-commerce strategy, human resources, board information needs and property disposals. Other work experience includes secondments to government and industry, deal experience, and leading system design and implementation projects cross-territory and other major change management leadership.
