Board of Directors

Ian Parkinson

CEO and Director

Ian Parkinson has spent the past 16 years as a sell-side mining analyst for several leading brokerage firms on Bay Street including Stifel GMP, GMP Securities and CIBC World Markets. He joined the analyst community after a successful 10-year career in industry with Falconbridge and Noranda. During Parkinson's time in industry he worked on a wide range of exploration, development and commercial interests. He built on his geology base with experience in metals trading, metal marketing and business development at the corporate level. Mr. Parkinson is an earth science graduate of Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, where he was born and raised in a mining family.

Lawrence Guy

Director

Larry Guy is a Managing Director with Next Edge Capital focused on driving the business forward via strategic partnerships, initiatives, and sourcing of new product ideas. Previously, Mr. Guy was a Vice President with Purpose Investments having joined the firm in its infancy and saw vast growth prior to his departure. Prior to Purpose, Mr. Guy was a Portfolio Manager with Aston Hill Financial Inc. Prior to Aston Hill Larry Guy was Chief Financial Officer and Director of Navina Asset Management Inc., a company he co-founded that was subsequently acquired by Aston Hill Financial Inc. Mr. Guy holds a BA (Economics) degree from the University of Western Ontario and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Michael Shuh

Director

Michael leads Canaccord Genuity’s Financial Institutions Group in Canada. Before he joined Canaccord Genuity in 2017, he was Head of Financial Institutions Investment Banking at CIBC and also worked at National Bank Financial. As well as covering traditional financial institutions, Michael has deep expertise in structured products and special purpose acquisition corps (SPACs). He also provides advice on raising capital and M&A to alternative financiers and FinTech companies. Michael has a Bachelor of Business Administration Honors from the Lazaridis School of Business & Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University and a Master of Business Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

Patrizia Ferrarese

Director

Patrizia Ferrarese has more than 20 years of experience in capital markets, entrepreneurship, and strategy consulting. She is currently Vice President (VP) of Business Design and Innovation at Investment Planning Counsel (IPC), overseeing strategic growth initiatives in wealth management. Prior to joining IPC as VP of Product Management, Patrizia held senior roles in product management at Tangerine Bank and Praxair, with responsibility for strategic growth across Canada. Patrizia’s management consulting experience includes engagements in South America and EMEA spanning graphite, oil and gas, and potash industries focused on identifying new market opportunities. Her career includes equity and options market making and trading in North America, culminating in portfolio and commodity trading manager roles as co-founder of an investment management company. Beyond her professional career, Patrizia mentors case competition teams at the Rotman School of Management and is a Volunteer Advisor with the Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO). Patrizia is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Business Administration at SDA Bocconi and holds an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Economics from York University. 

Ben Bowen

Director

Mr. Bowen has 20 years of experience building businesses in multiple sectors. After a success start to his career with Xerox Canada, Ben quickly ventured into entrepreneurship. His first venture, Seaway Document Solutions Inc, which he purchased in 2002, was acquired in 2013. He then co-founded a start-up software company and acted as CEO, servicing the global shared workspace industry. Following an exit from the software company, Ben started consulting for Canadian based SaaS firms, with a focus on developing go-to-market strategies for recently funded companies. Since 2016, Ben has continued consulting with his latest venture, Open Door Media, which is a full stack marketing firm focused on the lifestyle industry. Ben is also a founder of Innovate Kingston.

Vernon Arseneau

Director

Mr. Arseneau has over forty years of experience in exploration, project management and development, of which the last twenty-five have been in South America principally in Peru, Chile and Argentina. Vern spent 20 years working as exploration manager and senior geologist for Noranda Inc. in Canada and South America. He was general manager of Noranda's Peru office and project manager of the El Pachon porphyry Cu-Mo project in Argentina. He has consulted on numerous base and precious metals projects including as Vice President Exploration for Zincore Metals Inc. and was responsible for the exploration and feasibility studies of two zinc deposits and the discovery of the Dolores Cu-Mo porphyry, Peru. More recently, he was COO of Royal Road Minerals Ltd. exploring for gold in Colombia and Nicaragua. Vern holds a Bachelor of Science in geology.