Advisory Board Members
We’re happy to introduce you to the members of our Advisory Board.
The Advisory Board consists of professional third-party advisors of relevant experience in the cobalt and ASM sector that render non-binding advice to the Secretariat and Steering Committee of the FCA. The Advisory Board provides input and perspective to the shaping of the FCA’s strategic direction as the insight they provide reasonably represents the perspective of ASM stakeholders.
Holger Grundel – Chair
Holger is a senior private sector development and natural resource governance expert with more than 25 years of experience in the public and private sectors. He held several senior advisory positions with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (formerly the Department for International Development – DFID) in Senegal, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the UK. He was DFID’s Global Lead for Extractive Industries, setting the department’s policy positions on oil, gas, and mining; managing a global expert team and programme portfolio; and leading DFID’s strategic relationships with multilateral organisations, NGOs, and the private sector. Holger is currently the Managing Director of Levin Sources, a growing social enterprise consultancy promoting human rights and market access for artisanal and small-scale miners. He is also a Senior Adviser to the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development and Chair of the Governance and Human Resources Board Committee for the John Huntingdon Charity, which provides social housing and other support services in his local area.
Find Holger on www.linkedin.com
Auguste Mutombo
Auguste is the Founder and Executive Director of Alternatives Plus, a DRC-based civil society NGO that works to improve conditions in the artisanal mining sector.
Find Auguste on www.linkedin.com
Benitha Tambwe
Expert Head of Digitization and Partnerships, CTCPM, Ministry of Mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Benitha holds a Master’s in Business Analytics and Finance from the University of Southampton and has consistently demonstrated her prowess in financial analysis, strategic planning and decision-making. She is Head of Digitization and Partnerships at the Cellule Technique de Coordination et Plannification Minière (CTCPM) of the Ministry of Mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Throughout her career, Benitha has been at the forefront of technological advances and forged valuable partnerships to revolutionize the mining sector in her country. Her expertise and dedication have been instrumental in optimizing operations, promoting sustainable practices and encouraging economic growth in the mining industry. Thanks to her visionary leadership and commitment to excellence, Benitha Tambwe continues to make significant progress in pursuing a prosperous, digitally transformed mining landscape in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Find Benitha at www.linkedin.com
Brieuc Debontridder
Brieuc is an expert in social performance standards and author of “ République démocratique du Cobalt “. He worked for six years on the resettlement and livelihood restoration of populations affected by mining projects, mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo but also in Senegal and Guinea. He also worked on a study on child labour in artisanal cobalt mines in the DRC. More recently, he worked for The Shift, the Belgian sustainability network, on human rights and environmental due diligence in value chains.
As author and documentary photographer, Brieuc has published several articles and reportages in which he focuses on the sometimes stereotypical representations of Africa, particularly in the mining sector. In his book “ République démocratique du Cobalt “, he shares, through images and a story, the resettlement of a community by a mining company in the Congo and explores the mining issues on the ground and the paradoxes they embody.
Find Brieuc on www.linkedin.com
Jared Connors
In his five years at Assent, Jared has focused on helping companies achieve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals through increased understanding and mitigation of risk. With more than a dozen years of leadership in corporate social responsibility, human rights, anti-bribery and anti-corruption, and environmental issues, Jared helps guide companies into new areas of compliance and responsible sourcing.
Jared personally led on-the-ground audits of more than 75 smelters as part of Intel Corporation’s industry-leading conflict minerals program and is the original author of the creator of the Conflict Minerals Reporting Template (CMRT) and smelter audit protocols for tin, tantalum, and gold.
As a part of the FCA’s advisory board Jared’s goal is to bring more awareness to the DRC, artisanal mining operations and how downstream companies can get involved in responsible cobalt sourcing.
Find Jared on www.linkedin.com
Jose Diemel, PhD
Over the past 10 years, Jose worked on responsible mining and due diligence in mineral supply chains, both in industrial and artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). She has extensive on-the-ground experience in high-risk and developing areas, among which in Central Africa and South America. She started her career in academia, conducting PhD research studying the impact of ‘conflict-mineral’ policy and due diligence initiatives on local natural resource governance structures in Katanga, DRC. Working on the responsible production of minerals for a major industrial copper/cobalt mining company in Southern DRC, Jose gained key insights in due diligence from a corporate perspective working towards international best practices regarding human rights and the interaction between ASM and industrial mining. She built an extensive network in the DRC and has expert knowledge of internationally recognized due diligence standards, including OECD Due Diligence Guidance, ICGLR, RMI, Section 1502 Dodd-Frank Act, EU Regulation 2017/821, IFC performance standards; UNGP on Human Rights; and the VPSHR. In her latest role as Programme Manager at the Fair Cobalt Alliance, where she held the financial and operational responsibility for the programme, I gained further experience managing a multi-stakeholder initiative navigating between programme targets, civil society and private sector interests of member companies like Fairphone, Glencore and Tesla.
Jose holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the Groningen University, a Master’s degree in Human Geography from the Radboud University, and a PhD in Political Science/ Development studies from the Erasmus University (International Institute for Social Studies (ISS)) in the Netherlands.
Follow Jose on www.linkedin.com
Nicole Hanson
A sustainability expert and current Head of Responsible Business at the London Metal Exchange, Nicole Hanson applies her background in mechanical engineering to help companies and their supply chains increase the positive impact they have on humans and the environment.
Find Nicole on www.linkedin.com
Nikolaus McLachlan
Nikolaus has six years’ experience working on sustainable supply chains on a variety of different agricultural and mineral commodities. He focusses on understanding and mitigating adverse social and environmental impacts in primary industries and improving supply chain sustainability. He currently works for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), leading various projects financed by the private sector, located across three continents, and focussed on sustainable natural resources. He is part of the team of Cobalt4Development, a GIZ-led project piloting an approach to improve the conditions of artisanal miners and their communities in southern DRC. The focus of C4D is improving health, safety and environment in the ASM sector and addressing root causes of child labour, while identifying paths for an effective scale-up of proven approaches around ASM mining.
Follow Nikolaus
Cobalt 4 Development
www.linkedin.com
Olivier Delafoy
Photographer and Managing Director at the Corneille and Sima Group, the company responsible for the bimonthly DRC magazine Mining and Business, Olivier Delafoy has over two decades of experience working in the mining & metals industry.
Find Olivier on www.linkedin.com
Richard Robinson
Richard has 20 years of senior level experience in the DRC with a particular focus on managing political and social risk as an executive and adviser in DRC mining projects including as Managing Director of Alphamin Bisie Mining during its development from 2016 to 2020, a mine now producing 4% of the world’s conflict free tin. From 2011 through 2016 Richard served as Extractive Industries Technical Adviser for USAID DRC as the USG and USAID Mission responded to the implementation challenges of the conflict mineral provisions of the Dodd Frank Act. Previously, he also managed corporate social responsibility (CSR) and resettlement for Freeport McMoRan’s Tenke Fungurume Mining project. Richard has designed and led public private partnerships, engaging as many as four multinational mining investors with USAID in the DRC and promoting inclusion of persons with severe disabilities in mainstream employment in the U.S. and Pacific Islands. Since founding RMAC Global, Richard has also worked in DRC, South Africa and Tanzania in political and human rights risk mitigation for international mining companies and to implement the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.
Find Richard on www.linkedin.com
Sebastian Vetter
Sebastian is working with the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As an advisor in the field of technical cooperation, he has more than six years of experience in the implementation of international development projects in the region. His current work focuses on the establishment of responsible mineral supply chains, sustainable mining practice, both in ASM and LSM, as well as knowledge transfer in the context of multi-stakeholder capacity development.
As a geoscientist, he has experience in the development of capacity development measures scoping health and safety as well as environmental management in DRC’s major artisanal and small-scale mining sectors, producing 3TG as well as Copper and Cobalt. Sebastian has experience in the development of ASM certification schemes and risk assessment frameworks, aiming at the evaluation and monitoring of relevant aspects with respect to due diligence and sustainability risks in the mining sector. His skills are complementary to his extended knowledge of international mineral supply chains for Cobalt and Copper.
Sebastian is currently managing BGR’s office in Lubumbashi, extending the formerly ASM focussed project scope to the LSM sector by addressing issues in environmental management, corporate responsibility and local added value.
Follow Nikolaus on www.linkedin.com
Incepted in 2022, the Advisory Board meets with the FCA secretariat twice a year, and the meeting summaries are made publicly available. Click on the link below to access the minutes.