Directors and Management

Masoud Alikhani (Chairman and Executive Director)

Received a BSc in Agriculture from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1966. Before 1979 he was the major shareholder and Director of Alupan Ltd (renamed Alborz Aluminium), an Iranian aluminium irrigation pipe fabrication company that he co-founded. He then became a self-employed businessman before working in a variety of senior investment roles in Prudential Bache and Shearson Lehman Brothers.

In 1992 he served as a member of the board of the International Foundation for Privatisation of Russia. Between 1995 and 1997 he served as Chairman of Central Asian Studies at the London School of Economics and in 1997 he was appointed a member of the Dean’s Council, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Mr Alikhani has had a broad experience at board level in public quoted companies. Between 1993 and 1998, he was CEO at Middlesex Holdings plc (now Global National Energy plc), an international company quoted on the London Stock Exchange which then operated predominantly in Russia and other CIS countries in steel, non-ferrous metals, financial services, energy and agribusinesses.

Between 2003 and 2007 he was Chairman of Cape Diamonds Plc, an AIM listed company. In addition to BMR,  he is also a Director of Dominion Energy Plc, an oil and gas company and Plus-quoted ESV Group Plc, an agri-business specialising in  logistics and cereals trans-shipment.

Mark Wainwright (Non-executive Director)

Received a BA (Hons) degree in History and Politics from Queen’s College, Cambridge and an MBA from University of Cape Town. 

Mark began his mining career with Gold Fields in South Africa before joining Deloitte’s consulting division in 1998.  Here he worked for a range of mining and mining processing clients mainly in South Africa, Russia and the FSU, including majors BHP Billiton, Anglo American, Harmony Gold, Ferrexpo Ukraine, De Beers and Severstal Russia.

In August 2009 he moved back to the UK to head up the Global Mining Division of Turner and Townsend, the worldwide professional services organisation, where he is currently Managing Director. 

Mark brings wide experience of the essential functions of a mining and processing company from strategic planning, procurement and supply-chain, technical operations and environmental aspects through to sales and offtake systems.

Horacio Furman (Non-executive Director)

Received a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and an MSc in Materials Engineering at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, before obtaining his MBA at INSEAD, in Fontainebleau, France. 

Mr. Furman started his professional career in production and then marketing positions in the Hard Metals/Powder Metallurgy industry at Iscar Ltd, Israel. He later joined UDI, a privately owned trading company with wide presence, particularly in China, in trading and project development. In his capacity as VP for China he was personally involved for over a decade in the company’s activity in that country, including identification, negotiation and implementation of, inter alia, industrial joint ventures and transfers of technology in a wide range of fields including mining and metals.

In the 1990′s he was involved in the introduction of digital technologies in the reconstruction of several East European telecommunications networks.

From 2000 to date he has been involved in nurturing young start-up companies. He has served on boards of both Israeli and UK publically quoted companies. He is fluent in five languages.

Through his acquired ability to work in different countries, cultures and sectors including mining and metals, Mr. Furman brings to Berkeley Mineral Resources a diversity of perspective and wealth of experience to contribute to the realisation of the Company’s expansion plans.