Mr Lars-Eric Aaro

Lars-Eric Aaro, is CEO and president for the LKAB group, a Swedish high tech minerals group producing iron ore products and other mineral products. In the LKAB group he has served in many operating and management positions, last as vice president Sales & marketing.

LKAB is the worlds second biggest producer of high quality iron ore pellets for the iron and steel business. Before joining the LKAB group he also served at AssiDomän Karlsborg AB (a pulp & paper company) as Managing Director. In his long career in Swedish mining industry he has also served as General Manager Sales & Marketing at Secoroc (an internationally leading supplier of mine equipment). During his time with the Boliden group (a Nordic base metal producing group) he held various positions as mine superintendent Aitik, and head of lead/zink division.

He holds an MS degree in Mining Engineering from the Luleå University of Technology where he also is an Honorary Doctor. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science.

Mr Chris Barrington

Chris Barrington has more than 35 years experience in the natural resources industries, particularly in the field of raw materials for the iron and steel industry. Former employers in the sector include British Steel Corporation [now Corus], Utah international [now BHP Billiton] and LKAB. For the last ten years he has run his own business in the fields of raw materials distribution and provision of consultancy and management services. His company Papillon Mineral Services Ltd. provides the Secretariat for the International Pig Iron Association.

Mr Paul Bartholomew

Paul Bartholomew is the Managing Editor of Platts, based in Melbourne. Prior to acquisition of SBB by Platts, Paul spent almost two years in SBB's Shanghai office where he was China Editor. He has more than 12 years experience in communications, research and business development across a range of industries. He spent five years with Sydney-based financial research firm East & Partners, where he was Head of Client Services.

Prior to this he worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Sydney as a business development consultant. He has lived and worked in the UK, France, Australia, New Zealand and China.

Mr Rod Beddows

Rod Beddows
President & Co-Founder

Rod is President and Co-Founder of HCF International Advisers (“HCF”), a boutique
investment bank dedicated to the global mining and metals sectors. The firm provides corporate finance advice, including corporate strategic advice, M&A transaction advisory and execution services, capital markets advice and independent debt and project finance advice.

The firm is located in London. However, it operates globally. Its mining clients range from the juniors to the majors and cover all mineral commodities. Its clients in the metals sector include all steel companies, both carbon and special, and other metal manufacturers.

For seven years from 2003, Rod was CEO of Hatch Corporate Finance. Management purchased the firm from its majority shareholder, the Hatch Group, to form HCF in late 2010. From 1987 through to 1998, Rod was the major shareholder and chairman of Beddows and Co., a strategy consulting group which specialised in the mining and metals industries. He sold the firm to the Hatch Group in 1998 and joined the Hatch main board where he served
until 2003. Hatch is a major, privately owned, engineering and consulting firm focused on the mining, metals, energy and infrastructure sectors. It employs over 9,000 professionals in over 50 countries.

Rod is a noted speaker at industry and economics conferences. He also serves as Deputy Chairman of Zincox Resources Plc. As a consultant, he has provided advice to many major companies including Tata Steel, Corus, BHPB, Rio Tinto, Anglo American, Alcoa, Bohler-Uddeholm, US Steel, Metaloinvest and TMK. As a corporate finance adviser, he has advised Rio Tinto, Tata Steel, SNIM, Outokumpu, Al Tuwairqui Group, JSW, Straits Resources, Northland Resources and many others.

Rod was educated in both the UK and USA. He holds the following academic qualifications:
BA from Bristol University in Philosophy and Politics (1966)
MSc from Durham University in Management Studies (1973)
DBA (Doctor of Business Administration) from Harvard Business School (1976)
He has held academic appointments at Harvard and at Bradford Universities.

Mr Mark Berrisford-Smith

Having studied Economics at Sussex and London Universities, Mark is now Senior Economist in the Business Economics Unit at HSBC Bank plc.

He is responsible for advising the Bank in the UK and its business customers on developments in the British and global economies, within which remit he takes a particular interest in monitoring the performance of European countries. He speaks regularly at conferences, seminars, and lunches organised or sponsored by HSBC (attending around 90 events in 2009).

Interests and hobbies include hill-walking, cycling, the trials and tribulations of the England cricket team, and fine wines.

Mr Ronnie Cecil

Ronnie is employed as a Research Manger in SBB’s Research, Training and Consulting team, where he is helping to develop SBB’s new forecaster product range.

He spent the past 10-years employed as a Senior Analyst at CRU in their steel business unit.

His particular area of focus is the markets for ferrous raw materials – where he has been responsible for producing a variety of reports in the areas of Ferrous scrap, Met Coal, Coke and Iron Ore.

Ronnie holds a Masters Degree in Economics from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London.

Mr Davinder Chugh

Davinder Chugh, has over 30 years of experience in the steel industry in general management, materials purchasing, marketing, logistics, warehousing and shipping. Davinder Chugh is a Senior Executive Vice President of ArcelorMittal, member of the ArcelorMittal Group Management Board responsible for Shared Services. He is also a member of the Investment Allocation Committee.

Before becoming a Senior Executive Vice President of ArcelorMittal, he served as the CEO of Mittal Steel South Africa until 2006. Mr Chugh also worked in South Africa from 2002 after the acquisition of Mittal Steel South Africa (ISCOR) and was involved in the turnaround and consolidation of the South African operations of ArcelorMittal.

He also served as Director of Commercial and Marketing at Mittal Steel South Africa, among other positions. Mr Chugh was Vice President of Purchasing in Mittal Steel Europe until 2002, where he consolidated procurement and logistics across plants in Europe.

Prior to this, he held several senior positions at the Steel Authority India Limited in New Delhi, India.

He holds degrees in science and law and has a Master of Business Administration.

Mr Henry Cooke

Henry Cooke has been reporting on the global steel industry for more than 30 years. He joined Metal Bulletin as an Assistant Editor in 1975, and was promoted to Deputy Editor in 1978.

He later became Editor of Metal Bulletin and led its development of online news services. He edited several editions of the flagship directory “Iron & Steel Works of the World”.

Henry joined Steel Business Briefing in 2003 as a member of the editorial team. He has also contributed reports on steel to the Financial Times, the BBC, MEPS publications, Dagens Industri (Sweden), Business & Finance (Dublin), Financial Mail (Johannesburg) and others.

Mr Nick Edström

Nick has been with Steel Business Briefing as Southern Europe editor since 2010. Before that he worked for over five years as senior editor at the political and macroeconomic analysts, Country Risk Services, which is part of Dun & Bradstreet.

He also has extensive experience of financial reporting as well as the not-for-profit sector, which Nick gained after graduating with a first in modern languages.

Nick is married with one daughter.

Mr Konstantin Golovko

Konstantin started his work in Metinvest Holding in March 2010 in the role of the Head of Strategic planning office of the Strategy Direction. His main task in the company is to develop and support the effective functioning of the strategic planning process, including macroeconomic forecasting, market forecasting, identifying key risks and opportunities in the external environment, formulation of the Groups’s strategic goals, agreeing tasks between business units and consolidation of the Group strategic plan aimed at ensuring the long-term competitive position of the business.

Prior to Metinvest (2008-2009), Konstantin worked in investment banks in Ukraine, including Renaissance Capital and KBC Securities, as an equity research analyst in metals and mining. At an earlier stage, Konstantin worked for two years in CRU International, London as a senior consultant focusing on manganese commodities (2006-2007), and Interpipe Corporation, Ukraine, as the head of market research department of the manganese ferroalloy business (2004-2005).

Mr Paul Gray

Paul Gray is a Commodities Analyst with over 20 years continuous work experience covering commodities within financial services and consultancy roles. His current role is Commodities Analyst with Goldman Sachs JBWere, based in London, a position he has held since 1996.

Paul is part of a highly ranked global commodities team within which he is responsible for market analysis and price forecasting for the major dry bulk commodities (notably coal and iron ore) with additional input into base metals analysis.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs JBWere, Paul spent six years with CRU International, a leading metals and mining consultancy, where he was employed in various roles in the Base Metals and Steel teams.

Paul graduated from the University of Reading with an Honours Degree in Agricultural Economics in 1987.

Dr David Hargreaves

David Hargreaves is a mining engineer with over forty years of senior experience in the industry. After qualifying in coal mining he worked in the iron ore mines of Quebec and Northwest Ontario before diversifying into other bulk minerals including bauxite. He was Head of Research for stockbrokers James Capel in London from 1974 to 1977 and voted Mining Analyst of the year on three successive occasions.

Since forming his own metals broking and research company in 1977, he has successfully promoted and been a director of several public companies. He currently writes “The Week in Mining”, an incisive review of world mining events, for stockbrokers WH Ireland. David’s research pays particular attention to steel via the iron ore and coal supply industries. He is a Chartered Mining Engineer, Fellow of the Geological Society and the Institute of Mining, Minerals and Materials, and a Member of the Royal Institution. His textbook, “The World Index of Resources and Population” accurately predicted the exponential rise in demand for steel industry products.

Mr Daniel Harris

Born in 1954, Mr Harris is also President of Strategic Minerals Corporation since September 2009. Mr Harris has held the post of Vice President, Vanadium Assets since 2007 when he joined Evraz following the acquisition of Strategic Minerals Corporation.

Mr Harris has 32-years’ experience in the vanadium sector and was formerly Vice President in charge of operations at Strategic Minerals Corporation, in the US, a position he held since 2002.

Prior to this he served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Strategic Minerals Corporation (2000-2002) and was Managing Director of Vametco Minerals Corporation, the South African subsidiary of Strategic Minerals (1997-2000). Mr Harris also held various management positions during his 16 years at Stratcor’s Hot Springs, Arkansas plant, commencing in 197. These included General Manager for Vanadium Operations, Plant Manager for Hot Springs Operations and Project and Process Engineer for Vanadium Operations.

Mr Harris graduated from the University of Nevada, Mackey School of Mines, with a degree in Chemical Engineering in 1977.

Mr Mike Henry

Mike Henry was appointed President Marketing for BHP Billiton in July 2010. He joined BHP Billiton in 2003, initially as VP Business Development for the Energy Coal business. He has been with BHP Billiton's Marketing team since 2005, responsible at various times for Energy Coal, Uranium, Emissions, Freight and Petroleum. Prior to joining BHP Billiton, Mike held various positions in business development, marketing and financial analysis.

Mr Dallas Horadam

Dallas Horadam is an experienced industry analyst and consultant and Metalytics’ iron ore and steel industry specialist. Metalytics offers specialist resource sector economics advisory services to industry, financial institutions, legal firms, consulting firms, and public sector enterprises. An engineer with post graduate business qualifications, Dallas has presented strategic research and forecasts for iron ore, coal, and steel at major international conferences in Australia, Europe, and Asia. Before joining Metalytics, he spent six years as a senior analyst at AME, where he developed steel cost modelling and led ferrous industry research and the production of publications for clients around the world.

Previously, in a career of more than 26 years with the former BHP Steel, Dallas gained extensive steel industry knowledge in a range of senior positions. These spanned industrial engineering and process improvement, operations analysis, sales and operations planning, raw materials and energy optimisation, business planning, capital planning, export management, logistics and business improvement, and management of multi-site quality systems.

Mr Robert Hunter

Mr. Robert Hunter

Director, Marketing and Application of Iron Products, Midrex Technologies

Mr. Hunter was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, where his ancestors settled in the early to mid 1700’s. They had the foresight to found the town of Charlotte. 250 years later, Willy Korf, then the owner of Midrex was blessed with the wisdom to move Midrex to Charlotte.

Holding a B. S. in Physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he found employment at Midrex as a Project Clerk. He has held a wide range of positions since, including Research Technician, Operations Analyst, Licensing Administrator and for the past decade has been in charge of marketing and applications of iron products.

Mr. Hunter is married, father of three grown men (each of whom is smarter, a better athlete and more socially adjusted than their father). He is a Presbyterian elder, a gardener and an avid amateur astronomer, who also gives far too much time to the steel industry and too little to these interests.

Mr Phillip Killicoat

Phillip Killicoat leads corporate iron ore sales coverage for Credit Suisse's Commodities Group.

From 2004 he worked with McKinsey & Company advising resources companies on strategy, marketing and operations.

Phillip was a South Australian Rhodes Scholar graduating from Oxford University with a Masters in Economics.

Mr Jim Lennon

Jim Lennon is the senior London based Commodities Analyst for Macquarie Bank. He has worked for Macquarie for 16 years. He heads up a research team which services the equity, LME trading and corporate advisory divisions of the bank with steel, coal, metals and minerals research and market intelligence.

Jim has 30 years of experience in researching the international metals and mining industries.

Prior to joining Macquarie, Jim spent 10 years at CRU International Ltd in London, where he headed up research in nickel, stainless steel and steel-making raw materials. Before joining CRU, Jim worked as a marketing analyst at New Zealand Steel. He has also worked as an Associate Director of Metals and Mining Research at Shearson Lehman Hutton Securities.

Jim has a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Mr Steven Randall

Steven Randall heads The Steel Index (TSI) - the first independent global service specializing in providing verifiable daily iron ore reference prices and weekly steel reference prices based on actual transactions. TSI’s iron ore reference prices are used by the Singapore Exchange and LCH.Clearnet for settlement of their cleared iron ore swap contracts.

Prior to launching TSI, Steven was the Director of Strategy at the major European steelmaker Corus. Steven started his career as a strategy consultant with Hatch Beddows (1988-2000). There he specialised in steel industry strategy projects for clients worldwide. Following this, he was the UK General Manager of Steelscreen, an independent metals e-marketplace, before joining Corus in 2001.

Steven holds an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University and is married with three children.

Mr Bob Ray

Bob Ray is the Managing Director, Head of International Products and Services of CME Group, based in London. He is responsible for leading the continued development and execution of CME Group’s international business and sales strategy across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Asia and Latin America. Previously, Ray served as Managing Director, International Sales and was Head of the Commodity and Equity Products groups in Chicago.

Ray also served as Senior Vice President, Business Development, of CBOT from 2003. He joined CBOT in 2002 as Vice President, Equity Business Development, where he played a key role in creating a much more business-driven and customer-focused approach within the business development area. Prior to joining the CBOT, Ray served as a Principal at Robertson Stephens Inc. from February 2000 to October 2002, and was responsible for listed derivatives trading and served as Chicago Branch Manager. He also served as Senior Vice President, Institutional Equity Derivatives at Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. from July 1986 until July 1997, continuing with the successor company, Carr Futures, from July 1997 until February 2000 as Senior Vice President and Head of Listed Equity Derivatives.

Mr Ian Roper

Ian Roper joined CLSA in June 2010 in the new position of Commodity Strategist. Ian's focus is analysis of the bulk commodity and base metal markets, and he is based in Shanghai. He moved to CLSA after nearly five years at Rio Tinto, where he was Head of Iron ore market research, with split responsibilities between Shanghai and Perth, Australia.

Ian has lived in Shanghai since early 2003, moving from London where he was working with CRU, to establish Steel Business Briefing’s office and coverage of the China market. In 2004 he joined Macquarie to set-up their on-the-ground China commodities research presence.

Mr Raj Kumar Sharma

Mr. R.K.Sharma, M.A. (Economics), joined the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries as Secretary in the year 1969. He has been working as Secretary General since April 1989 and has dealt with the full gamut of issues - legal, tenurial, exports, fiscal, regulatory, labour, environment, marketing, infrastructure etc. - connected with the functioning of the mineral extraction/processing and metal-making sectors on a continuing basis. Mr. Sharma has at least 60 papers to his credit, covering various aspects of the mining industry. These papers have been published in national and international journals or presented in various national and international seminars. He is presently an independent member on the Board of Directors of National Aluminium Co. Ltd. (NALCO) an undertaking of Ministry of Mines. He has been actively associated with various State Governments in framing their State Mineral Policies.

He is member of the Central Geological Programming Board (CGPB), Uttar Pradesh State Geological Programming Board, Karnataka Mineral Advisory Council, Rajasthan State Mineral Advisory Board and Orissa State Geological Programming Board. He is also a member of numerous Committees/Study Groups/Advisory Boards set up by Planning Commission/Government of India. He is also a Member of United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Committee on Sustainable Energy – Ad Hoc Group of Experts on Cleaner Electricity Production from Coal and Other Fossil Fuels.

Despite heading an apex industry body, Mr. Sharma has been closely associated with a number of social organizations and welfare associations. He is member of various professional organizations both in India and abroad. He has directly and indirectly contributed to community and social causes. While addressing the industry issues he has always stressed his concern on the well being of the workers and residents, especially for the tribal and remote areas where mineral industry operates. At times of natural calamities and disasters, he has always approached the industry and assured that the mining fraternity extends maximum help.

Mr Edwin Van Der Gaag

Edwin van der Gaag is responsible for the trading of Ferro-Alloys at Ronly. Edwin is based in Rotterdam and has been with the company since 2008. Ronly is a global trading company with offices in 7 countries, dealing in metallurgical and agricultural commodities.

Edwin started his career trading grains in 1992 for Graanhandel Trigo B.V, a family-owned grain trading company which specialized in the buying and selling of wheat for the European flourmill industry.

He moved to LNM group in 2002, which later combined with Ispat to form Mittal Steel, where he was the Corporate Commodity Manager for ferro-alloys and electrodes. During this period, Edwin was apart from procuring the company’s needs heavily involved in the growth of the company through mergers and acquisitions, after which it became ArcelorMittal.

In 2007, he moved to ArcelorMittal Projects International which specializes in projects for the international oil and gas industry, where he was Global Procurement Manager for the steel needed for these projects.

Mr Mark Wiggett

Mark Wiggett has been working with The Steel Index (TSI) since its inception in 2006, and was involved with the initial development of the steel product specifications. He has continued to contribute as TSI has grown its portfolio, culminating in the launch of iron ore reference prices in November 2008.

Mr. Wiggett has been working with TSI’s sister company, Steel Business Briefing since 2003. Initially he was covering price and market developments around the world, but as of October 2004 he has been developing and editing their monthly analytical publication, Global Market Outlook (GMO). This reviews recent market activity and forecasts prices for the key steel products by major consuming regions.

After graduating with an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University, Mark joined Coutinho, Caro & Co in London as a graduate trainee. His 8 years with the company (now Stemcor) included 3 years as a delegate based in Khartoum, Sudan, covering East Africa.

Mr Rolf Willeke

Rolf Willeke looks back at almost 40 years of federation activity on behalf of the steel recycling industry. After his graduation in economic studies in 1969, he started his career as researcher for the German Industry Institute in Cologne. Almost a year later, he took up the position of Managing Director at Germany's steel scrap association BDS in Düsseldorf, of which he eventually became General Director and Executive Chairman.

In 1997, following a merger of BDS with the steel scrap organisation DSV, the German steel recycling association BDSV was founded. In this association, Rolf Willeke held the position of Executive Board Member until November 2009.

In parallel, for almost thirty years, he was also active at an international level as General Delegate for the Ferrous Division of the world recycling body BIR (Bureau of International Recycling) as well as German representative within EFR, the European Ferrous Recovery and Recycling Federation.