Top Mining Leaders Under 40 Driving Change in 2026

The Generational Handover Reshaping Global Mining

The mining industry has long operated on a simple premise: trust is earned slowly, over decades of operational experience, financial cycles, and hard-won technical knowledge. Historically, the sector's most consequential decisions — billion-dollar acquisitions, greenfield project commitments, royalty portfolio construction — were made by executives well into their fifties or sixties. That model is changing, and the shift carries real implications for how capital flows, how assets are valued, and how the industry positions itself for the critical minerals era ahead.

A new cohort of top mining leaders under 40 is not simply inheriting positions vacated by retirees. Many are building entirely new companies, structuring novel financial instruments, applying technology in ways the industry has never previously considered, and executing transactions that rank among the largest of the decade. Understanding who these individuals are, what frameworks they use to create value, and what their rise signals for the sector is increasingly relevant for investors, operators, and talent strategists alike.

How These Leaders Were Evaluated

The ten executives profiled here were assessed across multiple dimensions rather than any single metric. The framework spans four core areas: capital deployed or created, strategic innovation relative to industry norms, formal industry recognition, and measurable influence on the sector's long-term direction.

Formal recognition carries particular weight in this analysis. The Young Mining Professionals' Peter Munk Award and Eira Thomas Award function as peer-validated signals of exceptional early-career achievement. Recipients are typically nominated by industry practitioners, reviewed by committees with deep sector expertise, and chosen based on documented professional impact rather than self-reported credentials. You can explore the full awards criteria to better understand the rigour behind these designations.

Evaluation Note: The awards referenced throughout this article, including the Peter Munk and Eira Thomas Awards, are issued by Young Mining Professionals, an industry organisation with chapters across Canada and internationally. They represent peer and institutional recognition rather than commercial endorsements.

A Snapshot of the Under-40 Cohort

#10 Ashley Kirwan: Building the Backbone of Modern Exploration

From Co-Founder to Recognised Geoscience Leader

Ashley Kirwan co-founded Orix Geoscience in 2012 and has led the company as President and CEO since 2018, growing it into a practice of more than 60 geoscientists serving over 200 mining clients across junior, mid-tier, and major tiers.

The services Orix delivers are foundational to the modern exploration workflow:

• Exploration strategy development and geological interpretation
• GIS data compilation and spatial analysis
• 3D geological modelling for drill targeting
• Data analytics and resource intelligence
• Support for BHP's Xplor exploration programme

What distinguishes Kirwan's model is the positioning of geoscience consulting as a scalable, institutionally credible business rather than a freelance practice. By building a team of this size with formalised governance, Orix fills a structural gap that many junior explorers cannot address in-house.

Kirwan holds the ICD.D corporate governance designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors, an uncommon credential for a geoscientist-turned-CEO, and sits on the boards of Transition Metals and EGR Exploration. She received the Eira Thomas Award from Young Mining Professionals in 2020, was named among the 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining, and earned a Top 40 Under 40 recognition from the City of Greater Sudbury.

#9 Ella Cullen: Applying Blockchain and AI to Mining's Supply Chain Problem

The Compliance Gap That Minespider Was Built to Close

Supply chain traceability in mining has historically been a weak point, not because companies were indifferent to it, but because the technical infrastructure to verify mineral provenance at scale did not exist. Ella Cullen co-founded Minespider alongside CEO Nathan Williams to address precisely this gap, developing a blockchain and AI-powered platform for digital product passports and battery passports across global supply chains.

The timing has proven consequential. The EU Battery Regulation has created compliance obligations that extend back through the supply chain to raw material extraction, requiring documented traceability for materials including lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Platforms that automate this process are transitioning from optional ESG tools to mandatory compliance infrastructure.

Minespider's client roster demonstrates cross-sector traction:

• Google and Cisco (technology sector)
• Ford and Renault (automotive/EV sector)
• Minsur (the world's second-largest tin producer)

The company has been supported by EIT RawMaterials for nearly eight years, including an initial €180,000 grant through its Booster programme. This sustained institutional backing reflects the platform's structural relevance to European industrial policy on circular economy compliance.

Industry Insight: Digital product passports are not simply ESG reporting tools. Under the EU Battery Regulation framework, they represent legally required documentation of a battery's material origin, carbon footprint, and recyclability. For mining companies supplying into European manufacturing chains, the ability to generate this data efficiently is becoming a commercial prerequisite.

Cullen received the EIT Women Leadership Award at the 2026 European Prize for Women Innovators, alongside the Web3 Award for Women in Tech and Young Female Miner of the Year recognition.

#8 Vicky Liu: Driving M&A Strategy at the World's Largest Diversified Miner

Inside the Filo Corp Acquisition and the Vicuña Joint Venture

Corporate development roles at major mining companies rarely attract public attention, but the transactions they originate and structure can reshape the industry's supply landscape for decades. Vicky Liu joined BHP's Corporate Development and M&A practice in 2025 and contributed to one of the sector's landmark copper transactions of the decade.

The Filo Corp acquisition, completed in 2025, saw BHP and Lundin Mining jointly acquire the company for approximately US$4.8 billion, forming the Vicuña joint venture on a 50/50 basis. The JV combines two adjacent projects in the Atacama region of Argentina and Chile:

• Filo del Sol: A copper-gold-silver deposit straddling the Argentine-Chilean border
• Josemaria: A porphyry copper-gold project in San Juan Province, Argentina

BHP has characterised Vicuña as having the potential to form a world-class copper district, a designation that implies district-scale endowment rather than single-deposit economics. The strategic rationale is grounded in structural copper supply crunch projections: population growth, global electrification, and the rapid buildout of AI data centre infrastructure are all copper-intensive trends extending well into the 2030s.

Liu received the Eira Thomas Award from Young Mining Professionals in 2026, recognition that reflects both her technical contribution to the transaction and her broader influence as an emerging figure in mining finance.

#7 Ana Gabriela Juárez: Expanding Mining's Talent Pipeline Through Advocacy and Education

Two Decades of Environmental Consulting Across Central America

Ana Gabriela Juárez brings more than 20 years of environmental consulting experience to her role as President of CTA Environmental Consultants, where she leads the firm's operations across Central America. Her work spans the full lifecycle of mining project environmental assessment, from baseline studies through to ongoing community engagement and regulatory compliance.

What places Juárez among the top mining leaders under 40 is not only her consulting track record but her institutional contribution to the sector's talent pipeline. Recognising that the industry faces a demographic challenge, she has pursued multiple parallel initiatives:

• Founded Women in Mining Central America, building a regional professional network
• Serves on the board of the Development Partner Institute
• Created the Ana's Adventures at the Mine children's book series, aimed at introducing young girls to STEM and resource sector careers
• Established the Kids Mineralogist Club to provide hands-on engagement for children

These initiatives matter practically. The mining industry consistently identifies talent attraction as a strategic constraint, particularly in Latin America where community relations and social licence are material project risks. Furthermore, building early awareness of mining careers among underrepresented groups addresses a structural supply problem in the sector's future workforce. The broader conversation around women in mining reflects precisely the kind of systemic change Juárez is working to accelerate.

Juárez has been recognised as one of the 100 Most Inspirational Women in Mining globally, one of the 10 Most Influential Hispanic Canadians, and received the Rising Star Award at Mines and Money. She won the Eira Thomas Award in 2025.

#6 Frederick Bell: From a US$1m Start-Up to a US$1bn Royalty Platform

The Architecture of Elemental Royalty's Growth Trajectory

Royalty and streaming companies occupy a distinctive position in the mining investment landscape. They provide capital to operators in exchange for a percentage of future production revenue, acquiring commodity exposure without the operational costs, capital expenditure obligations, or execution risks associated with running a mine. Building one from scratch requires deal origination skill, institutional credibility, and the ability to attract capital at each successive growth stage.

Frederick Bell co-founded Elemental Royalties as a private company in 2016 with approximately US$1 million in seed capital. The growth milestones from that starting point illustrate a disciplined and systematically executed build:

The current portfolio comprises 16 producing assets and more than 200 royalties globally, a scale that provides diversification across geographies, commodities, and operational stages. Bell has credited the team assembled at each stage as the core driver of this growth, a perspective that reflects an understanding of royalty company construction as fundamentally a talent and dealflow business rather than a capital-only exercise.

Bell received the Young Rising Star Award at Mines & Money in 2018 and the Peter Munk Award in 2026, reflecting consistent recognition across the full arc of Elemental's development.

Strategic Lens: Royalty company valuation is driven by net asset value of the royalty portfolio plus optionality on exploration upside from development-stage royalties. Building from US$1m to US$1bn in under a decade, across multiple corporate structures and stock exchange listings, is a materially more complex undertaking than it appears on a summary timeline.

#5 Alex Dorsch: Engineering a World-Class Critical Minerals Discovery in Western Australia

Gonneville: A Multi-Commodity Project With Strategic Significance

When Chalice Mining announced the discovery of its Gonneville palladium-nickel-copper-cobalt deposit in Western Australia in 2020, it represented the first significant palladium group element (PGE) discovery in Australia in decades. The deposit sits on Chalice-owned farmland with no outstanding Native Title claims, a land tenure position that removes a category of project risk that affects many Australian mining developments.

Alex Dorsch has led the company through the transition from discovery to development-stage asset, with A$250 million invested to date and a Final Investment Decision targeted for the first half of 2028. The project's profile also speaks directly to the rising critical minerals demand underpinning investment decisions across the sector.

Key project characteristics that distinguish Gonneville from conventional single-commodity developments:

• Primary commodities: Palladium, nickel, copper, cobalt (multi-revenue stream from a single operation)
• Workforce model: 500 projected local jobs with no fly-in fly-out workforce planned, an unusual community integration commitment for a Western Australian mining project
• Project status: Western Australian Strategic Project designation and Commonwealth Major Project status
• Land tenure: Chalice-owned farmland with no outstanding Native Title claims

Dorsch's career path before Chalice is worth examining as a template for cross-disciplinary mining leadership. He trained as an engineer at BHP, worked in oil and gas exploration, then spent time as a specialist consultant at McKinsey before moving into the CEO role at a discovery-stage junior. Each transition added a layer of technical, commercial, and strategic literacy that is visible in how Chalice has managed Gonneville's development.

He received the Emerging Leader of the Year award from MiningNews, was named CEO of the Year by Kitco in 2020, and won the Peter Munk Award in 2022.

#4 Scott Berdahl: Executing One of Canada's Most Significant Gold Discoveries in Years

The Valley Target: Drilling Metrics That Redefined Yukon Exploration

The Yukon's geology has long been recognised as prospective for gold, but major new discoveries remain rare events in any jurisdiction. Scott Berdahl co-founded Snowline Gold and has overseen the systematic delineation of the Valley target at the Rogue Project, a discovery that has attracted widespread attention for the consistency and grade of its drill results.

The exploration metrics accumulated to date tell a compelling technical story:

• Total metres drilled: 71,000m+
• Visible gold occurrences recorded: 9,136 instances
• Standout 2023 drill result: 553.8m at 2.5 g/t gold from surface, including 132m at 5.0 g/t
• Resource definition: Two successive Mineral Resource Estimates and a Preliminary Economic Assessment completed

Geological Context: Visible gold in drill core is a qualitative indicator that the deposit contains free-milling gold rather than refractory mineralisation. Refractory gold is chemically locked within sulphide minerals and requires more complex, expensive processing. Free-milling deposits are generally lower cost to process and carry higher recoveries, which directly improves project economics. The frequency of visible gold at Valley is therefore not merely a visual highlight but a meaningful metallurgical signal.

The 2023 drill intersection of 553.8m at 2.5 g/t from surface is significant for two reasons beyond the grade itself. First, the interval begins at surface, eliminating the need for costly pre-stripping or deep initial development. Second, the continuous length of the interval suggests strong geological continuity, a critical variable for resource confidence and eventual mine planning.

Near-surface, high-grade gold deposits with clean land tenure and demonstrated drill continuity are among the most strategically valuable asset types in junior mining. Snowline's Valley target combines all three characteristics.

Berdahl received the Peter Munk Award in 2024 and was named Kitco Mining's CEO of the Year in the non-producer category the same year.

#3 Vincent Metcalfe: Serial Capital Builder Across Royalties and Critical Minerals

Building and Selling Nomad Royalty: A Blueprint for Value Creation

Vincent Metcalfe co-founded Nomad Royalty in 2020 and served as its CEO and Chair until Sandstorm Gold acquired the company in an all-stock transaction reported at between US$740 million and US$755 million in 2022. Building a royalty company from inception to a nine-figure exit in under three years is an unusual achievement in any market cycle.

Following the Sandstorm transaction, Metcalfe moved into the lithium space, joining Comet Lithium as Executive Chairman in October 2023 before being appointed President and CEO on 1 January 2024. Comet's flagship asset is the Liberty property in Quebec's James Bay lithium district, a region that has attracted significant exploration investment given its geological similarity to the Abitibi belt's precious metals endowment and the proximity of known lithium-bearing pegmatites.

Metcalfe has also co-founded Nomad Resource Partners alongside Joseph de la Plante and Vincent Cardin-Tremblay, a platform backing early-stage mining ventures. Current portfolio companies include:

• Pecoy Copper: A Peru-focused copper explorer targeting Andean porphyry systems
• Evolve Royalties: A copper-focused royalty company that listed on the CSE in December 2025

Pattern Recognition: The repeatable model demonstrated here — identifying undervalued royalty or resource opportunities, constructing institutional-grade corporate frameworks around them, and executing defined value-realisation events — represents a form of mining private equity applied through public markets. The Nomad-to-Sandstorm transaction is now referenced within the sector as a case study in royalty company monetisation and capital event engineering.

Metcalfe received the Peter Munk Award in 2023.

#2 Adam Lundin: Multi-Entity Leadership Across the Lundin Group's Copper Ecosystem

Roles Held Simultaneously Across Mining, Royalties, and Metals

Adam Lundin's current role profile is notable for its breadth. He simultaneously holds the position of Chair at Lundin Mining, serves as President, CEO, and Chair of LunR Royalties Corp, and chairs Fireweed Metals. Each entity represents a distinct segment of the critical minerals value chain, and managing strategic direction across all three reflects an unusually sophisticated grasp of inter-entity capital flows within the Lundin Group structure.

His previous role as President and CEO of Filo Corp was the platform through which he advanced the Filo del Sol copper-gold-silver deposit from an exploration-stage asset to a project substantial enough to attract a US$4.8 billion joint acquisition by Lundin Mining and BHP in 2025. He had earlier served as President and CEO of Josemaria Resources, advancing the adjacent Josemaria porphyry copper project in Argentina's San Juan Province before it too was absorbed into the Vicuña JV structure.

Deal Architecture Insight: The Vicuña JV's value derives partly from the combination of Filo del Sol and Josemaria into a single operational corridor. Both deposits sit within the same mineralised belt, meaning their combined development allows infrastructure sharing, geological learnings to transfer between adjacent drill programmes, and potential sequential or concurrent production planning. Adam Lundin's stewardship of both assets prior to the BHP transaction created the preconditions for this combined valuation.

Adam and Jack Lundin were jointly named Persons of the Year by The Northern Miner in 2024, and jointly received the Peter Munk Award in 2025.

#1 Jack Lundin: Leading the Decade's Most Consequential Copper Transaction

From Bluestone Resources to Lundin Mining CEO: A Compressed Leadership Timeline

Jack Lundin's ascent to the top of this ranking is anchored in the scale and complexity of a single transaction executed within the first two years of his tenure as CEO of one of Canada's most prominent copper producers. Before joining Lundin Mining as President in 2022, he served as President and CEO of Bluestone Resources and worked as Project Superintendent on Lundin Gold's Fruta del Norte gold mine development in Ecuador, one of the more complex mine builds of the 2010s given its remote Andean jungle location and technical underground requirements.

The Filo Corp Acquisition: Metrics, Structure, and Strategic Significance

The key transaction parameters:

Executing a transaction of this scale within approximately two years of becoming CEO of a TSX-listed major places Jack Lundin in rare company historically. Comparable examples of first-term major acquisitions at this value level by under-40 CEOs are difficult to identify in recent mining history.

The strategic logic behind the deal is straightforward in outline but complex in execution: copper supply faces a structural deficit through the 2030s, driven by the convergence of declining grades at existing operations, a thin development pipeline, and simultaneously accelerating demand from electrification, grid modernisation, and AI infrastructure. Securing a position in a world-class district at this point in the cycle represents a long-dated bet on supply scarcity. Consequently, understanding the broader mining finance trends shaping capital deployment helps contextualise why transactions of this magnitude are accelerating.

Jack and Adam Lundin jointly received the Peter Munk Award in 2025, alongside the Northern Miner's Person of the Year recognition in 2024.

What These Leaders Have in Common: Patterns Across the Under-40 Cohort

Cross-Disciplinary Backgrounds Are Becoming the Norm

Looking across the ten profiles, a consistent pattern emerges: the most effective under-40 mining leaders are not single-discipline specialists. They combine technical training with financial literacy, operational experience with strategic consulting backgrounds, or deep geology with corporate governance credentials. Alex Dorsch's BHP-to-McKinsey-to-CEO trajectory, Ashley Kirwan's geoscience-to-ICD.D governance path, and Jack Lundin's operational-to-dealmaking arc all reflect this.

The Rise of Founder-Operators

Cohort Insight: Of the ten leaders profiled, at least six either co-founded their companies or built new entities from the ground up. This represents a structural departure from the traditional mining career model of ascending through established operators across decades.

This founder-operator profile carries distinct investment implications. Founders typically hold meaningful equity stakes, align their personal financial outcomes with shareholder returns, and operate with a long time horizon that differs structurally from appointed executives managing inherited portfolios. For context on how the top 50 biggest mining companies are structured relative to these emerging entities, the contrast in governance models is instructive.

Critical Minerals Alignment: Copper, Lithium, Gold, and PGEs Dominate

The commodity focus of this cohort is not coincidental. Every leader profiled is operating in a commodity with a structural demand thesis extending through the 2030s. Copper underpins electrification. Lithium underpins battery storage. Gold provides portfolio insurance in uncertain monetary environments. PGEs, through Gonneville's palladium exposure, bridge the combustion-to-hydrogen transition timeline.

The Role of Formal Recognition in Accelerating Career Trajectories

Frequently Asked Questions: Mining Leaders Under 40

Who Is Considered the Top Mining Leader Under 40 in 2026?

Based on transaction scale, institutional recognition, and strategic impact, Jack Lundin of Lundin Mining ranks as the standout leader in this cohort, primarily due to his role in orchestrating the approximately US$4.8 billion Filo Corp acquisition and the resulting Vicuña joint venture with BHP.

What Is the Young Mining Professionals' Peter Munk Award?

The Peter Munk Award is issued by Young Mining Professionals to recognise outstanding contributions to the mining sector by individuals under 40. It honours the legacy of Peter Munk, the founder of Barrick Gold, and is widely regarded as the sector's most prestigious recognition for emerging executives.

Are There Female Mining Leaders Under 40 Making a Global Impact?

Several of the leaders profiled here are women making measurable contributions across different functions. Ashley Kirwan has built a 60-person geoscience firm. Ella Cullen co-founded a supply chain technology platform with Fortune 500 clients. Ana Gabriela Juárez has spent two decades in environmental consulting while building institutions for the next generation. Vicky Liu contributed to one of the decade's largest copper transactions at BHP.

What Career Paths Lead to Senior Mining Roles Before 40?

The cohort profiled here suggests several viable pathways:

1. Technical training (geology, engineering) followed by operational roles at majors, then transition to juniors or founder roles
2. Finance or consulting backgrounds combined with mining-specific deal exposure
3. Family or group company structures providing accelerated leadership responsibility
4. Founding a company in an adjacent sector (technology, royalties, environmental services) that serves the mining industry

How Is the Mining Industry Changing Under Younger Leadership?

Younger executives are accelerating several structural shifts: faster adoption of digital tools and AI in exploration and compliance, greater integration of ESG frameworks into project economics rather than treating them as reporting add-ons, more creative use of royalty and streaming structures to finance development, and a higher tolerance for cross-border and cross-commodity complexity in deal structuring.

The Broader Shift: What Younger Mining Leadership Means for the Industry's Future

Faster Capital Cycles and Greater Technology Adoption

The leaders profiled here are operating in a mining environment that is structurally different from the one their predecessors navigated. Environmental permitting timelines, community consent requirements, supply chain transparency obligations, and investor ESG expectations have all increased in complexity. The executives who are succeeding under 40 are those who treat these factors as design parameters rather than compliance friction.

The Talent Pipeline Challenge

Perhaps the most underappreciated dimension of this cohort's significance is what it implies about the talent pipeline. Mining faces a demographic challenge as a significant portion of its senior technical and managerial workforce approaches retirement age. The visibility of successful top mining leaders under 40 is itself a recruitment signal, demonstrating to prospective entrants that meaningful responsibility and economic participation are achievable earlier in a mining career than the industry's historical norms suggested.

Forward-Looking Perspective: The ten leaders profiled here are not statistical outliers. They are early and visible indicators of a structural generational transition in how mining companies are built, financed, and led. As critical minerals demand intensifies through the 2030s, the sector's capacity to attract, develop, and retain executive talent under 40 will function as a material competitive variable, one that will differentiate the companies best positioned to execute on the coming decade's resource development requirements.

This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. All financial figures, transaction values, and resource estimates referenced are sourced from publicly available company disclosures and industry reporting. Readers considering investment decisions should conduct independent due diligence and consult qualified financial advisers.

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