AEX Gold Inc. (CVE:AEX) (LON:AEXG) has announced the appointment of Jaco Crouse as its chief financial officer (CFO) with immediate effect.
The group said Crouse will replace George Fowlie who has stepped down as the CFO but remains on its board as a director. It added that the board intends to propose Crouse as a director of the company at the next annual general meeting.
READ: AEX Gold says development of Nalunaq gold project advancing as planned, as it updates on procurement activity
AEX Gold noted that Crouse is a seasoned mining executive with nearly 20 years' experience in financial management, mine financial planning, business optimization and strategy development. He most recently occupied the position of CFO of Detour Gold Corp., where he facilitated the successful financial and operational turnaround and sale of the corporation to Kirkland Lake Gold for US$3.7 billion.
Prior to that, he was chief financial officer & vice president Finance of Triple Flag Mining Finance Ltd., a Toronto-based private metal streaming business. From 2015-2016 Crouse was vice president Business Planning & Optimization at Barrick Gold Corp. where he was instrumental in resetting the cost structure and improving the capital allocation discipline to deliver free cash flow improvements from underperforming assets during a period of low gold prices.
Crouse started his career in mining in 2002 at Xstrata Alloys, the world's largest ferrochrome producer, and went on to join Xstrata Nickel in 2007 (after the acquisition of Falconbridge) to integrate and optimize the nickel business unit, during which time he worked extensively in the Canadian business unit of Xstrata Nickel. He also worked as an asset manager at Glencore following its merger with Xstrata in 2013 and was responsible for integrating their nickel marketing offices.
In a statement, Eldur Olafsson, founder and chief executive officer of AEX Gold, commented: "On behalf of the board, I would like to welcome Jaco Crouse to the AEX Gold team. Jaco brings with him significant industry and financial experience which will be vital as we continue our progress towards recommencing operations at the Nalunaq Gold Mine and moving into production."
AEX Gold boasts a portfolio of gold assets covering 3,870 square kilometres, the largest portfolio of gold assets in Southern Greenland.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com