Board of Directors

  • Govind Friedland

    Executive Chairman

    Govind Friedland is Founder and Executive Chairman of GoviEx Uranium Inc, and has more than 20 years of experience working internationally to finance, explore and develop strategic energy minerals critical for combating global air pollution. His career experience has focused primarily on nickel, copper and uranium. Mr. Friedland has served as the Executive Chairman of GoviEx since October 2012 and previously served as its Chief Executive Officer from June 2006 to October 2012. He also serves on the board of Lifezone Metals, which is a modern metals company creating value across the battery metals supply chain from resource to metals production and recycling. Mr. Friedland served on the board of directors at Cordoba Minerals Corp., which is developing the San Matias copper/gold complex north of Medellin, Colombia, and Sama Resources Inc., which is exploring the Samapleau nickel/copper project in Ivory Coast, West Africa. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Geology and Geological Engineering from Colorado School of Mines.

    Mr. Friedland possesses a unique multicultural background, having lived much of his life in Asia immersed in the mineral exploration industry. Mr. Friedland is also a founding shareholder of I-Pulse Inc., a private U.S. company that uses proprietary super capacitors and related technologies to address inefficiencies across a wide range of industries including mineral exploration, mineral processing, hydrocarbon EOR and geothermal drilling technology, water discovery, and large utility-scale batteries as well as advanced manufacturing. 

  • Daniel Major

    Chief Executive Officer

    Daniel Major is a mining engineer from the Camborne School of Mines in the UK. His career spans over 35 years in the mining industry where he has established a solid record of accomplishment initially with Rio Tinto at the Rossing Uranium Mine in Namibia and Amplats in South Africa, and later as a mining analyst with HSBC Plc and JP Morgan Chase & Co. in London. Next, Mr. Major was Chief Executive and later Non-Executive Chairman of Basic Element Mining and Resource Division in Russia, has and held leadership positions at several Canadian listed mining companies with exploration and producing assets in Canada, Russia and South America. Daniel joined GoviEx in 2012, as a director and as CEO, and has been responsible for the transition of the company from explorer to developer.

  • Christopher Wallace

    Director

    Christopher Wallace has more than 35 years of banking and corporate finance experience. He previously served as the Managing Partner of Second City Capital Corporation, a US$100 million private equity and mezzanine loan fund. He also was the Chief Operating Officer of Canadian Maple Leaf Financial Corporation, a publicly traded Merchant Bank, until 1998 when he left the firm to set up Stirling Mercantile Corporation. Mr. Wallace has been a director of various boards, including Greening Donald Company Ltd., The Rockford Corporation, and Bennett Environmental Inc. He graduated from Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada, with a BA Hons. in Economics.

  • Benoit La Salle

    Director

    Mr. La Salle is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCPA, FCA), a member of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and holds a Commerce Degree and a Masters of Business Administration from IMEDE in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1980, Mr. La Salle founded Grou, La Salle & Associates, Chartered Accountants. In 1995, Mr. La Salle founded SEMAFO Inc., a mining company with gold production and exploration activities in West Africa and held the position of President and Chief Executive Officer of the organization until August 2012. He now acts as President and Chief Executive Officer of Windiga Energy Inc. In the last quarter of 2012, Mr. La Salle was appointed Chairman of Canadian Council of Africa (CCAfrica), Sama Resources Inc. and Algold Resources Ltd. Mr. La Salle is the former Chairman of the Board of Plan International (Canada).

  • Salma Seetaroo

    Director

    Ms. Seetaroo has spent the last 17 years working on debt, equity and special situations investments in Africa as an investment banker and is the Chief Executive Officer of Ivoirienne de Noix de Cajou S.A, a 9000T cashew processing plant in Côte d’Ivoire, employing 520+ people and supporting 5,000 farmers.  She is also a director of Canadian listed gold explorer and has previously sat on the board of a Canadian listed agrichemical company operating in Africa.  She is a member of the Global Advisory Board of the Cass Business School, City University London, UK, where she earned her Executive MBA, and is a trained lawyer, previously an associate with the global law firm, Norton Rose Fulbright 

    Until 2018, Ms. Seetaroo ran Gold and General Limited, an investment holding that controlled Zimbabwe’s largest gold producer and led the acquisition and turn-around of a distressed fibre optic business in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Prior to this, she founded and grew Medea Capital Partners, a successful FCA regulated resource advisory business in London, which she successfully exited in 2014, and was an investment banker at Société Générale, focused on mining finance.

  • Eric Krafft

    Director

    Mr. Krafft is a Swedish private investor with business interests across a number of different industries, including natural resources positioned to benefit from the trends of increased electrification, electric mobility and energy storage.  In particular, he has since 2017 built one of the largest individual exposures to Uranium - physical, producers and developers.  As a consequence of which he is also a substantial shareholder of the Company.

    Mr. Krafft is a Non-Executive Director and largest shareholder of a Canadian listed issuer, which is developing European projects focussed on materials such as rare earth elements and graphite needed for the electrification of society.

    Mr. Krafft serves on the boards of numerous private financial holding and ship-owning companies, which includes family-owned Star Clippers Cruises, a sailing ship cruise line.

    Until 2006, Mr. Krafft was the managing owner of Trafalgar Shipping/ Dragon Maritime, a China based dry bulk shipping operation.  Prior to this, he worked in corporate finance for DVB Bank AG, a German specialist transportation finance bank. Mr. Krafft worked mainly in Mergers & Acquisitions in London and Equity Capital Markets in New York.

    Mr. Krafft holds a Master of Science; Shipping, Trade & Finance, from City University London, UK.

  • Allison Fedorkiw

    Director

    Ms. Allison Fedorkiw is an established leader with a strong record in social impact management in the natural resource sector, having worked on projects in Canada, Latin America, and West Africa, leading teams in developing and implementing resettlement action plans, social baselines, environmental and social management systems, and social management plans.  Ms. Fedorkiw is the founder and principal consultant of Human Ecology Consulting Global Inc.