Christina brings over 15 years of experience in commodity trading with a deep knowledge of Iron ore, carbon steel, zinc/copper and precious metals concentrates. Prior to joining Open Mineral Christina was the traffic manager for iron ore at Glencore in addition to being responsible for physical shipments globally, and sourcing of materials in CIS countries. Christina is skilled in contract negotiations, business development and project management. Her previous roles include trading and logistics positions at Biogen Idec and Steelforce nv. Christina is fluent in English, Russian, Dutch, German.
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Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder
Boris Eykher
Boris Eykher is co-founder and CEO of Open Mineral, the sovereign and venture-backed technology marketplace geared to increase the profitability and efficiency of copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver raw material trading. The Company has already been recognized for innovation as 2019 #WEF Technology Pioneer and 2020 Rising Star Company by S&P Global Platts Global Metals - for its achievements and potential to transform the trade of minerals and improve society for years to come. Prior to this, he was with Glencore for eight years in various functions including trader, asset manager for the mines and smelters, and CFO of Kazzinc - Glencore's largest asset. Boris started his private equity career as an associate at Pacific Corporate Group. Boris holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley.
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Chairman & Co-Founder
Ilya Chernilovskiy
Ilya has more than 16 years experience in metals & mining and commodities trading in addition to experience in finance. Prior to founding Open Mineral, Ilya was with Glencore as an Asset Manager in their base and precious metals and concentrates department working in Switzerland, USA and Kazakhstan. His experience also extends to executive positions in the mining service industry with AV Group in addition to working as an investment-banking associate with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Ilya holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MSc in Chemical Technology from Mendeleev University.
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Senior Advisor
Nico Paraskevas
Nico Paraskevas, is a senior advisor to Open Mineral and an investor. Nico's scope and main responsibilities include lead spot market creations, opening up the relationships with major producers and smelters; and advisory services on OM's growth and development. Previously, Nico was the Head of Copper Marketing at Glencore Plc and Chief Financial Officer for Katanga Mining Ltd. (a subsidiary of Glencore Plc). Nico holds an undergraduate degree from the University of the Witwatersrand.
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Head of Legal & Compliance
Alejandro Skidelsky
Alejandro is a qualified England-and-Wales solicitor and Israeli lawyer with more than 30 years of legal work. Before joining Open Mineral in November 2022, Alejandro was the General Counsel of Gerald Metal Sàrl for 9 years, five of which also as General Counsel of its iron ore mine in Africa. Alejandro has also held a variety of positions both within law firms and in-house. Alejandro holds and LLB from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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Head Of Commercial
Kareem Barbir
Kareem has more than 15 years experience in the commodity trading industry. Prior to joining Open Mineral, he was at Concord Resources where he was Head of Zinc/Copper/Lead concentrates trading as well as a Senior Strategist. He has worked both for physical trading companies as well as producers in various roles gaining expertise in physical trading, market analysis, LME risk management, offtake financing, logistics in addition to mine and smelter optimisation. Kareem holds a BSc in Government from the London School of Economics and an MSc in Energy, Trade and Finance from Cass Business School.
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Head of Research
Ryan Cochrane
Ryan Cochrane has over twelve years of experience as a metals analyst and geologist having worked on gold and polymetallic projects in South Africa, Western China, Armenia and the Northern Andes. Prior to joining Open Mineral, he led CRUs base metals supply and cost research, worked on copper mine costs and later led the gold mining research team at Wood Mackenzie. In earlier roles, he covered precious metals at Thomson Reuters GFMS. He has strong expertise of zinc, lead and copper markets along with precious metals. Ryan holds a PhD in geochemistry, geochronology and thermochronology from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
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Strategic Projects
Trevor Skidmore
Trevor has spent his entire career in the base metals industry. He held commercial roles for Rio Tinto in Shanghai and Singapore marketing copper concentrates. He then managed Marketing Operations for Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia during the production ramp-up, before moving to Rio Tinto headquarters in London where he worked on corporate transactions and strategy projects.
Before joining Open Mineral in 2022 he led the Concentrates division of Henry Bath where he managed logistics, blending and storage facilities. His experience includes concentrate supply chains as well as industry analysis, business strategy and M&A.
He graduated from Durham University in 2007.
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Head of M&A
Natig Ganiyev
Natig brings over 15 years of experience in Investment and advisory services.
Prior to joining Open Mineral, Natig has garnered industry experience in markets including Finance, Energy, Food & Agriculture, Renewables, Real Estate, and Hospitality.
Natig holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a BA from the University of Maine.
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Head of Operations
David Alacid
David brings 30 years of international experience in commodity trading as operations manager in Oil & Gas and Minerals & Metals. He joined Cargill where he held various leadership positions in the Energy, Transportation & Metals division.
Prior to joining Open Mineral, he worked in physical trading, Mining & Metallurgical companies ArrowMetals, Nizi and Metal Trade Overseas where he developed and led global trading & shipping operations.
David graduated from Ecole Superieure de Commerce Genève and has certificates in international communication and project management from UC Hayward and GW School of Business.
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Chief Product Officer
James Rilett
James is a commodities and FinTech specialist with 16 years in the markets and a proven track record creating and growing innovative businesses with technical edge. Led the sale of Munich based tech startup MVS, achieving full exit to Platts in 2015.
He speaks at commodities conferences presenting macro and fundamental market analyses of market evolution. James led the Platts Innovation centre which specialises in deploying applied blockchain, machine learning and big data.
James holds a BA in International History from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and is ACCA qualified.
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Derivatives Trader
David Chlebecek
David has almost 10 years of experience in the commodity trading industry from various roles and projects. Starting in the oil trading department in Singapore for Glencore then moving to the head office in Switzerland where he gained experience in concentrates and metal markets. He also worked in Glencore's Canadian copper assets focusing on smelter feed and logistics. Over the years David has been involved in the design of internal processes, ERP systems, optimization of logistics, LME/LBMA hedging, market analysis, he managed copper and cobalt logistics teams and most recently precious metals derivatives in Glencore.
David holds MSc in Applied Finance from Singapore Management University and a BSc in International Trade from the University of Economics in Prague.