About us
The Board
The Board consists of two Executive Directors and four Non-executive Directors of whom three are considered by the Board to be independent pursuant to the UK Corporate Governance Code.
Amre Youness
Non-executive Chairman
Mr. Youness is the Chief Executive Officer of IMR Management Services Limited, and has been Nonexecutive Chairman of Capstone since 2008. He is also Chairman of Samancor Chrome (an IMR investee company). He was previously in private equity. He is a Board member of various charitable organisations involved in Sub-Saharan Africa. Mr. Youness is a US citizen.
Alon Davidov
Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Davidov has been a director of Shaft Sinkers (Pty) Limited since 2007. He worked for IMR in its business development function from 2003 to December 2010. As IMR’s South African representative, he was responsible for IMR’s original investment in the Group in 2007 and oversight of the Group’s subsequent development on behalf of IMR.
He was previously Finance Director of Bateman Litwin Kazakhstan from 2003 to 2005. He is a fluent Russian speaker and is also a Non-executive Director of Samancor Chrome. Mr. Davidov has dual citizenship in South Africa and Israel.
Chris Hall
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Hall joined the Group in 2007 as the Chief Financial Officer following three years as the Chief Executive Officer of JSE-listed Excellerate Holdings.He has over 13 years’ experience in the oil industry and was previously Finance Director of Total South Africa, during which time he spent seven years in France. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant and spent four years post-qualification at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young. Mr. Hall is a South African citizen.
Stephen Oke
Independent Non-executive Director
Mr. Oke holds a BSc Honours degree in Geology from the University of Southampton and an MBA from the University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Business. He has 35 years’ experience in the mining and metals industry of which some 12 years were spent in various operational management positions for the National Coal Board, Anglovaal Ltd, BPCoal and Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company Limited. Subsequently he has held senior positions in the investment banking industry for Smith New Court, Merrill Lynch, NM Rothschild and Sons and Standard Bank, specialising in the metals and mining sector, where he advised on a number of transactions and equity capital fund raisings worldwide. He is a non executive director of International Ferro Metals Limited and African Mining & Exploration plc and was previously on the boards of Nikanor plc, Katanga Mining Limited and Kazakhgold Group Limited.
Ian Watson
Independent Non-executive Director
He joined Gold Fields of South Africa Ltd in 1962 and after working at various gold mines became Mine Manager at, successively, the West Driefontein gold mine, the Kloof Gold Mining Company and the Northam Platinum Ltd platinum mine and then Consulting Engineer from 1992 - 1998. He subsequently worked as Managing Director of Northam Platinum Ltd from 1998 - 2002, as Chief Executive Officer of International Ferro Metals (SA) (Pty) Ltd from 2003 - 2005 and as Chief Executive Officer of Boynton Investments (Pty) Ltd until his retirement in 2009. He is a Professional Engineer (Engineering Council of South Africa) and holds a National Diploma in Mining from the Witwatersrand Technical College, a Mine Manager’s Certificate of Competency from the South African College of Mining and has been a participant on the General Management Programme at Henley Management College in the UK. He is currently non-executive Chairman of Galaxy Gold, a private company.
Roger Williams
Independent Non-executive Director
Mr. Williams is a UK and South African chartered accountant with over 20 years’ international experience in mining finance. After graduating from the University of Southampton with an honours degree in French and Spanish, he qualified as a chartered accountant with Touche Ross and joined the finance department of Carlton Paper. In 1997 he joined Randgold Resources working on its London Stock Exchange listing and its later secondary listing on NASDAQ and was appointed Group Finance Director in 2002. During 2002 - 2007 he was part of the management team that oversaw its expansion raising debt finance, managing its treasury operations and assisting on M&A and new business. He was subsequently Chief Financial Officer of JSE-listed AECI Limited and BSG Resources Limited, a private company, both involved in the mining industry. He is a UK citizen.