Stephen Betts
Chairman
Stephen has over 30 years experience of trading with West African countries and involvement with projects, companies and governments, including Sierra Leone, Guinea, Gambia and Liberia.
Stephen is Chairman and CEO of The Stephen Betts Group, and has been since 1979, which is involved in all aspects of precious metals including bullion dealing, smelting and refining, and the manufacture and supply of jewellery and dental alloys and prefabricated bullion products. The group also has a waste management division.
The original family business was founded in Birmingham in 1760. Now in its ninth generation of family ownership and management it is one of the longest, if not the longest, succession of this type of business in the world. The contacts throughout the precious metal industry will be a great help to Hummingbird
Daniel Betts
Managing Director
After graduating from Nottingham University, Dan worked at Accenture Business Consultancy from 1998 to 2001. Dan then joined The Stephen Betts Group and he is currently a Director.
In 2005, following prolonged involvement in Liberia, Dan founded and is currently Managing Director of Hummingbird Resources Ltd.
Dan will also become a Director of Equatorial Biofuels, a company specializing in renewable energy from oil palm plantations which is planning to invest up to £20m in Liberia over the coming years. Equatorial Bio-fuels should be listed on AIM in the near future.
Matthew Idiens
Commercial Director
Matt is an Executive Director and was one of the founder members of Hummingbird Resources Ltd. He has been jointly responsible for the successful fund-raising and business development to date.
He is a founding Director of VANE Minerals, which listed on AIM in June 2004 and specializes in uranium and silver in Mexico and the America’s.
He is also a Non-Executive Director of SL Minerals Limited, a gold and diamond exploration and development company targeting Sierra Leone, West Africa.
He worked for Laing and Cruickshank Investment Management, the stockbroking arm of the Credit Lyonnais Group, for 7 years as a fund manager. He has considerable knowledge of the global equity and bond markets and also experience in company flotations. He has worked since the early 1990s raising funds and helping to list exploration, mining and oil & gas companies operating in South America, Africa and the FSU.
Paul Puxon
Non-Executive Director
Partner - Ferguson Solicitors
Sebastian Marr
Non-Executive Director
Sebastian Marr holds a Masters Degree in Management Studies from St Andrews University, after which he worked in an Investment Bank in the City of London. He is currently working and a Director of family business, Andrew Marr International Ltd, based in Hull, UK, which is over 100 years old and is the largest private fish business in the UK, with sales of in excess of $500million. In particular, the business has very extensive trading interests throughout West Africa. Sebastian is also associated with several junior resource companies and is non-executive director of Hummingbird Resources.
David Pelham
Technical Director
David is a minerals geologist with 29 years experience in the exploration, evaluation and mining of metalliferous, industrial mineral, energy mineral and gemstone deposits. His experience includes 11 years working with international mining and exploration companies, 4 years with a major consultancy group and 14 years as a self employed independent geological consultant. He has worked for a broad range of mining companies, from junior to major, at all seniority levels from project geologist to chief geologist. He has worked in a range of geographical and geological environments in over 30 countries in Africa, Europe, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia, and has visited almost 300 mineral deposits.
David has substantial experience in the exploration and development of all major types of gold deposit, having visited more than 70 gold deposits in 13 countries and undertaken detailed on-site geological and technical work on more than 40 of them. Recent gold experience has included the supervision of Birimian gold exploration programmes in 6 West African countries. Another area of speciality is in underground exploration of vein and epithermal gold deposits having published a, paper in the early 1990’s entitled “The Evaluation of Vein Gold Deposits”.
David also has broad experience in the exploration and assessment of deposits of gemstones, major base metals and energy minerals, with a major focus on Africa. A paper written in 1999 entitled “Base Metal Exploration Targets in Africa” has been published by The Mining Journal.
Since 2000 David has been involved mainly with the exploration for gold, coal, diamonds, base metals and PGMs in Latin America and Africa, and base metal mining evaluations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Other recent experience in the UK includes geological and resource evaluations for industrial minerals and construction raw materials, and various mineral environmental projects.