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Mining Executive Search · Board & ExCo

Board and executive committee search, in mining.

Board and executive search, chief executive succession planning, and leadership assessment for mining, metals and critical minerals. Every mandate is run personally by the founder, from brief to appointment. His record since 1998 runs to 228 senior placements across 43 countries.

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What board and executive committee search is

Board and executive committee search is retained work on the roles at the top of a mining company: the chair, the senior independent director and the non-executive directors on the board, and the chief executive, chief financial and chief operating officers and their direct reports on the executive committee. It is commissioned by the nomination committee or the chair, and it runs confidentially.

The work divides into three things that are usually bought together: executive and board search for a defined appointment, succession planning for the roles that will turn over in the next two to three years, and leadership assessment: establishing what a candidate or an incumbent actually does under pressure, rather than what their record implies.

These appointments behave differently from every other search a mining company runs. The brief is written against a gap in board composition or a succession horizon rather than a vacancy. The incumbent is frequently still in post. The internal candidates have to be assessed on the same basis as the external market, and be told so. And the circle of people who know the search exists is deliberately small, which is the practical reason a founder-led firm suits this work: the person you brief is the only person on the search side who ever sees the list.

The consequence of getting it wrong is not a recruitment cost. It is a strategy that does not get delivered, a state relationship that does not survive a change of minister, or a capital programme that loses its sponsor halfway through.

How we help

Board search: chair & non-executive director

Board composition work: mapping the market against a defined skills gap (operational, technical, capital markets, ESG, or judgement in a specific jurisdiction) and approaching directors confidentially long before a name reaches a board paper. Includes senior independent director and committee chair appointments.

Chief executive succession

Planned successions and unplanned ones. Internal slates assessed against the external market on identical criteria, so the committee can defend the decision either way. Run without a public brief while the incumbent remains in post.

Chief financial officer search

Group and regional chief financial officers, and the finance leadership beneath them, for companies moving between development, production and acquisition. Assessed for capital-markets credibility as much as for technical accounting depth.

Chief operating & technical officer search

The executives who carry the assets: chief operating officers, chief technical officers and vice presidents of operations, across single-asset producers and multi-country groups.

Executive committee build-out

Where the requirement is not one appointment but a team: a developer building its first full executive committee ahead of production, or a group replacing several functions after a change of control.

Governance context

Board briefs are written against the code the company actually reports under, whether that is the UK Corporate Governance Code, the ASX Corporate Governance Principles, Canadian NI 58-101 or the King Code, because the definition of independence and the expected committee composition follow from it.

Who we serve

Intermediate and mid-tier producers

The centre of the practice. Companies large enough that a chief executive or chief operating officer appointment sets the plan for a decade, and small enough that there is no internal bench to promote from.

Developers moving into production

The hardest executive transition in mining: a team that built a project has to become a team that runs a business. Usually an executive committee build-out rather than a single appointment.

Major diversified groups

Country, regional and functional leadership beneath the group executive, and board appointments where the requirement is judgement in a specific jurisdiction rather than a name.

Private-equity and institutionally backed

Portfolio companies where the sponsor needs the appointment made quickly and defensibly, and where the assessment has to satisfy an investment committee as well as a board.

State-owned and joint ventures

Appointments where the state is shareholder, regulator and partner at once, and the executive has to hold that relationship as part of the job rather than alongside it.

Junior explorers and developers

Chair and non-executive appointments that give a small board the technical, capital-markets or jurisdictional credibility it is missing, ahead of a raise or a listing.

Appointment record at this level

Drawn from the mandate ledgers published on the regional pages of this site. Client names are held in confidence; roles are shown by country, commodity and level. These are the board and executive committee appointments. The founder's wider record, across his career since 1998, runs to 228 senior placements across 43 countries.

LevelAppointmentsWhere
ChairCoal; critical minerals & rare earthsUnited States, United Kingdom
Non-executive directorGold (two); coal; critical minerals & rare earthsCanada, United States, United Kingdom
Chief executive officerGold (three); coal; steel; base metals (two); industrial mineralsLiberia, Canada, United States, Kazakhstan, United Kingdom
Chief financial officerGroup, regional and deputy CFO; group treasurerNamibia, DR Congo, Chile, Switzerland, Liberia
Chief operating officerCopper, zinc and gold; diversified operationsSierra Leone, DR Congo, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia
Chief technical officerIron ore; regional CTO, base metalsUnited Kingdom, Canada
Vice president, operationsBase metals; smeltingChile, Australia

A representative view of appointments at board and executive committee level, not a complete record. Full regional ledgers sit on the Africa, Americas, Australasia, Eurasia & FSU and Middle East & Europe pages.

Leadership assessment at board level

At board and executive committee level the technical question is usually settled early. What decides the appointment is judgement: how a person holds a relationship with a state, an investor or a joint-venture partner when the asset is not performing, and whether they can be disagreed with.

Assessment therefore runs past the interview. Structured behavioural interviewing is paired with psychometrics (the founder holds British Psychological Society Level A and Level B qualifications, including Hogan) and with reference triangulation: references taken from above, beside and below the candidate, sourced independently rather than supplied.

For non-executive appointments the same discipline applies to fit with the board that already exists. A director who duplicates the chair's strengths adds nothing to a composition gap.

How the mandate runs

StageWhat happens
BriefWith the nomination committee or the chair. The composition gap or succession horizon is defined before any specification is written.
Market mapWhere the mandate calls for one: a systematic view of everyone currently doing the job, globally, including those who would never answer an advertisement. Some board appointments turn on a defined shortlist rather than a full map, and are run that way.
AssessmentStructured interviews, psychometrics and reference triangulation. Internal candidates assessed on identical criteria.
CloseOffer, negotiation, notice and transition support through to the first board meeting.
TimingQualified shortlist in six to eight weeks; completion in three to four months.
TermsRetained and exclusive, charged as a fixed fee agreed before the search starts and staged across it, with a written replacement guarantee. Board mandates are not priced as a percentage of compensation: non-executive remuneration is low relative to the work a board appointment takes, so a percentage would misprice it in both directions.

Every stage is run by the founder, with named research support where a mandate needs it. What there is not is an associate handover after the brief, which is the first thing worth verifying about any firm you consider. Our buyer's guide covers the rest.

Why boards appoint us

One sectorNatural resources only: mining and metals, critical minerals, the energy transition. Recruiting since 1998, specialised in mining since 2006.
One point of contactThe person you brief runs the mandate, makes the approaches and sits in the assessment, start to finish. Research support is engaged where a mandate calls for it and is named to you. What does not happen is the mandate passing to an associate after the pitch.
Board-level recordChair, non-executive, chief executive, financial, operating and technical officer appointments across five continents. The founder's career record since 1998: 228 senior placements in 43 countries.
Assessment depthBritish Psychological Society Level A and Level B qualified, including Hogan. Psychometrics and independently sourced references, not interviews alone.
Few conflictsA small concurrent client list means very little of the mining market is off-limits as a candidate source — the constraint that quietly shapes shortlists at larger firms.
Retained onlyExclusive mandates, staged fees, a written replacement guarantee. No contingent work and no parallel agency competition.

Frequently asked questions

What is a board and executive committee search in mining?

It is a retained search for the roles that sit at the top of a mining company: the chair, the senior independent director and non-executive directors on the board, and the chief executive, chief financial and chief operating officers and their direct reports on the executive committee. The work is commissioned by the nomination committee or the chair, run confidentially, and assessed against board composition and succession needs rather than a job description alone.

Who appoints non-executive directors to a mining board?

The nomination committee leads the process and recommends to the full board; shareholders then vote on the appointment at the annual general meeting. A search firm is engaged by the committee to map the market against a defined skills gap — operational, technical, financial, capital-markets, ESG or jurisdictional — and to approach candidates confidentially before any name reaches the board paper.

How is a mining CEO succession run confidentially?

The incumbent is usually still in post, so the mandate runs without a public brief. Internal candidates are assessed on the same basis as the external market, approaches are made personally rather than through advertising, and the shortlist exists only with the nomination committee. Templeton Global Search runs these mandates through the founder alone, which keeps the circle of knowledge to one person on the search side.

What board and C-suite appointments has Templeton Global Search completed?

The regional mandate ledgers published on this site record chair appointments in coal and in critical minerals and rare earths; non-executive director appointments in gold, coal and critical minerals; chief executive appointments in gold, coal, steel, base metals and industrial minerals across Liberia, Canada, the United States, Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom; and chief financial, chief operating and chief technical officer appointments across Africa, the Americas, Eurasia and Europe. Client names are held in confidence.

How are candidates assessed at board level?

Beyond structured interviews, assessment uses psychometrics and reference triangulation. The founder holds British Psychological Society Level A and Level B qualifications, including Hogan. At board level the questions that matter are behavioural and situational: how a person holds a relationship with a state, an investor or a joint-venture partner under pressure, and whether their judgement holds when the asset is not performing.

How is a board or non-executive search charged?

As a fixed fee, agreed before the search starts and staged across it, rather than as a percentage of the appointee's compensation. Non-executive remuneration is low relative to the work a board appointment takes, so a percentage of it would not reflect the search. Executive committee appointments are charged on the firm's usual retained basis. Expenses are agreed in advance and a written replacement guarantee applies either way.

How long does a board or executive committee search take?

A qualified shortlist within six to eight weeks and completion in three to four months is the normal shape, governed by notice periods, relocation and family moves. Non-executive appointments are often faster; chief executive successions with an internal candidate slate can run longer because the assessment work precedes the external market.

Further reading

Hired to Hand Over examines succession and the deliberate transfer of leadership; Below the Surface covers assessment beyond the CV; and our map of the mining executive search market sets out which firms operate at this level and what each model does well. See all insights.

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