About Us

Luke Frederick Atkins LLB

Mr Atkins is a lawyer by profession and one of the founders of the company. Mr Atkins brings to the board extensive experience in the areas of mining, exploration, and corporate governance. Mr Atkins is also Non-Executive Director of the successful ASX listed mining and exploration company, Bauxite Resources Ltd (BRL) (now Australian Silica Quartz Ltd). Mr Atkins formerly held the role of Executive Chairman of BRL after co-founding the company in 2007. He has played a key role in BRL third party negotiations to successfully access funding, joint venture partnerships, land and infrastructure.

Mr Atkins has had extensive experience in capital raisings and has held a number of executive and non-executive directorships of private and publicly listed companies including a number of mining and exploration companies.

Iggy Tan B.Sc MBA GAICD

Mr Tan is a highly experienced mining and chemical executive with a number of significant achievements in commercial mining projects such as capital raisings, funding, construction, start-ups and operations. Mr Tan has over 30 years’ chemical and mining experience and been an executive director of a number of ASX-listed companies. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Southern Cross, a Bachelor of Science from the University of Western Australia and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Mr Iggy Tan became the Company’s managing director in August 2014. He is responsible for managing and implementing the next stage of the Company’s strategic business objectives, which includes the commercialisation of the battery materials coating project as well as the high purity alumina (HPA) project. Having been involved in the commissioning and start-up of seven resource projects in Australia and overseas, including high purity technology projects, Mr Tan is an accomplished project builder and developer.

Mr Tan previously held the positions of managing director of Nickelore Limited, Galaxy Resources Limited and Kogi Iron Limited. At Galaxy Mr Tan was responsible for the capital raising, construction and start-up of the company’s Mt Cattlin spodumene mine ($80m) and the Jiangsu lithium carbonate plant ($100m), which resulted in Galaxy becoming the world’s leading producer of high purity lithium carbonate. The Jiangsu plant was eventually sold for $260m in 2014.

Daniel Lewis Tenardi

Mr Tenardi is a highly experienced mining executive with some 40 years in the industry, including with a number of global resource industry leaders across a range of commodities, including iron ore, gold, bauxite, and copper. Mr Tenardi previously spent 13 years with Alcoa, at its bauxite mines in the Darling Range in Western Australia, and a further two years at Alcoa’s Kwinana refinery. He has substantial gold mining experience, including with Roche Mining at the Kalgoorlie Superpit and at Anglo Gold Ashanti’s Sunrise Dam. Mr Tenardi subsequently worked at executive level for Rio Tinto’s Robe River Iron Associates and their East Pilbara Division, and was appointed as a Director of Robe River Iron Associates in the latter years of his employment with Rio Tinto.

Prior to this appointment, Mr Tenardi was Managing Director of Bauxite Resources Ltd, where he led the rapid growth of the company from its initial exploration phase, expansion of land holdings, to the commencement of trial shipments and securing supportive strategic partnerships with key Chinese partners. Mr Tenardi also held the positions of General Manager of Operations and Chief Operating Manager at CITIC Pacific Mining.

Mr Tenardi was previously a non-executive director of Grange Resources Ltd.

Peter Bailey

Mr Bailey is a highly experienced and qualified engineer with over 40 years’ experience in the mining and industrial mineral production industry and has an electrical engineering degree from the University of London. Mr Bailey spent the majority of his career in the iron ore mining, bauxite mining, zinc-lead-copper mining, alumina refining and alumina chemicals industries respectively.

Mr Bailey was President of Alcoa Bauxite and Alumina in 1996, and was responsible for Alcoa’s eight alumina plants outside of Australia. He was also the chairman of the Alcoa Bauxite joint venture in Guinea, Africa.

In 1998, he was appointed President of Alcoa Worldwide Chemicals’ industrial chemicals department from 1998. He was responsible for Alcoa’s worldwide chemicals business, comprising 13 plants across eight countries, with an annual revenue of approximately $700 million. Post Alcoa, Mr Bailey was chief executive officer of Sherwin Alumina, an alumina refinery based in Texas, USA. The Sherwin alumina plant was capable of producing 1.4 mtpa of smelter grade alumina and 300,000 tonnes of chemical grade or specialty alumina per year. Mr Bailey together with Reynolds bought out the Sherwin Alumina plant, which was eventually sold to China Minmetals (51%) and then the remaining 49% to Glencore in 2007.

Tunku Yaacob Khyra

Tunku Yaacob Khyra is the Executive Chairman of the Melewar Khyra Group of Companies (Melewar), a Malaysian base diversified financial and industrial services group. He is the major owner and shareholder of Melewar. Tunku Yaacob Khyra sits on the Boards of Khyra Legacy Berhad, Mycron Steel Berhad, MAA Group Berhad, Melewar Industrial Group Berhad, Ithmaar Bank B.S.C.(listed on Bahrain Stock Exchange) and several other private companies.

Tunku Yaacob Khyra graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Hons) Degree in Economics and Accounting from City University, London. An accountant by training, he is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and a member of the Malaysian Institute of Accountants. He started his career as an Auditor with Price Waterhouse, London from 1982 to 1985 and subsequently joined Price Waterhouse Kuala Lumpur from 1986 to 1987. He joined Malaysian Assurance Alliance Berhad in 1987 and retired as its Chief Executive Officer in 1999.

Uwe Ahrens

Mr Uwe Ahrens is executive director of Melewar Industrial Group Berhad and managing director of Melewar Integrated Engineering Sdn Bhd. He also sits on the Board of several other private limited companies. Mr Ahrens holds Masters in both Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration from the Technical University Darmstadt, Germany. Upon graduation, Mr Ahrens joined the international engineering and industrial plant supplier, KOCH Transporttechnik GmbH in Germany, now belonging to FLSmidth Group, where he held a senior management position for 12 years, working mainly in Germany, USA and South Africa.

In 1997, he was based in Kuala Lumpur as General Manager of KOCH in South East Asia and became its Managing Director in 1999. He joined Melewar Group in 2002 and is also currently chief technical officer of the Melewar group of companies being responsible for engineering, upgrading, modification and extension of machinery and plant as well as the overall maintenance.

Hansjorg Plaggemars

Mr Plaggemars was previous member of the board of Delphi Unternehmensberatung AG and Deutsche Balaton AG (ATC major shareholder) and currently acts as their representative. Mr Plaggemars is based in Hiedelberg, Germany and is an experienced company director and manager. He studied business administration at the University of Bamberg from 1990 to 1995.

Mr Plaggemars has been a management consultant since June 2017 and is a board member of various companies within the scope of projects. Mr Plaggemars is currently a member of the management board of Frankfurt Stock Exchange listed Altech Advanced Materials AG. Mr Plaggemars also currently serves as a non-executive director at ASX listed Davenport Resources Limited (now South Harz Potash Ltd), Kin Mining Limited and Azure Minerals Limited.

Martin Stein Chartered Accountant, B. Bus, Chartered Secretary

Mr Stein is a finance and corporate executive with over 20 years’ of international experience.

Mr Stein has held the positions of Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary in several ASX listed companies. In these roles, Mr Stein has been responsible for all aspects of capital raising, financial management, shareholder liaison and corporate governance.

Prior to this, Mr Stein held senior positions with Anvil Mining Limited as well as with PwC at its London office. Whilst with PwC, Mr Stein provided corporate services for companies listed on the LSE, NYSE and AIM, including Colgate-Palmolive, Sony, Heinz, DHL Express and Bosch.