Jeff Geipel

Founder, Managing Director   

jeffgeipel@ewb.ca

Jeff founded Mining Shared Value in 2012 and has since acted as Managing Director.

Before Mining Shared Value, Jeff was the founder and first executive director of Fair Trade Vancouver, which became a model for municipal-based fair trade organizations across Canada. Originally from Vancouver, Jeff holds a master’s degree in international development from the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom. Jeff’s work and articles have been featured by the Guardian, Devex, the Globe and Mail, National Post, Next Billion, Mining Weekly and Hill Times Magazine. Jeff currently resides in London, England.

Tatiana Alarcon

Program and Advocacy MANAGER

tatianaalarcon@ewb.ca

Originally from Ecuador, Tatiana is a public policy professional specializing in external advocacy, public policy creation, and management of economic development programs of various industries including mining and agriculture. Tatiana leads MSV’s engagement with Latin American sector stakeholders, contributes to the World Bank Group’s Extractives-Led Local Economic Diversification (ELLED) program, and leads company assessments and engagement with the Mining Local Procurement Reporting Mechanism (LPRM). Her work has included the design and facilitation of trainings for over 60 civil society organizations in Colombia and Peru, and consulting with mining companies in the region to enhance procurement performance.

Prior to joining the MSV team, she worked for the Municipality of Quito, Ecuador at the Office of Productive Development as a District Manager where she was responsible for advising policy development and managing environmental and climate change mitigation programs. Furthermore, she worked at UNDP Mexico in the climate change department and as a consultant for UNICEF in London UK. Tatiana has a master’s in public administration (M.P.A) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (Social policy focus) and currently resides in Ecuador.

Caroline MacIsaac

Program officer

carolinemacisaac@ewb.ca

Caroline leads on the GIZ DeveloPPP project in Ghana, MSV’s climate work, and MSV’s Indigenous and Local procurement work in Canada.

Originally from Canada and based in London, UK, Caroline joined MSV back in June 2023, and prior to this, she worked as a Programme Manager with Salix Finance, providing funding to the UK public sector to decarbonise through the Department of Energy and Net Zero "Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme" . Caroline has also worked with AGOVA, an impact-driven business development consultancy firm based in Zambia, developing shared value services for SMEs and with women rights organisations in Canada and Guyana. She has a degree in Leadership Studies and International Development from the University of New Brunswick and a MSc in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics.

Gabriel Vásquez

PROGRAM OFFICER

gabrielvasquez@ewb.ca

Based in Ecuador, Gabriel is an international relations and development professional with experience in public policy analysis, community outreach and skill development programmes. Gabriel focuses on Latin American projects and serves as focal point for outreach in the region. He also works on company assessments using the Local Procurement Reporting Mechanism (LPRM) and contributes with the Mining Shared Value Community of Practice on LinkedIn.

Gabriel worked as International Relations Director on the Ecuadorian Antitrust Authority, in charge of designing and executing the general outreach strategy, generating programmes to strengthen the skills on competition matters in the Ecuadorian public sector, and to foster the understanding of economic market principles within private sector stakeholders, local communities and civil society in general. Gabriel studied International Relations at Tecnológico de Monterrey, International Public Policy at University College London and International Cooperation for Development at Universidad Internacional de La Rioja.

Karl-Axel Waplan, Chair

Independent Consultant, Waplan Consulting AB

Karl-Axel Waplan is a consultant at Waplan Consulting AB and Partner at Senior Advisors business association. With a focus on mining, he has more than 30 years' experience in raw material extraction, production, processing and trading.

Karl-Axel was the President and CEO of Northland Resources from 2010-2013 and President and CEO of Lundin Mining Corporation from 2005-2008. Over the course of his career, he has held various positions with responsibilities such as negotiating M&A deals and managing complicated mining development and production revamping projects. He has also spent years negotiating and finalizing financing models through equity raising, bond financing, project financing as well as ordinary debt financing with international investors and banks. He has worked around the world including in South America, Africa, Russia and Iran. Karl-Axel's expertise lies in structuring organizations through designing business models and administration processes.

Karl-Axel received a Masters of Science Mechanical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm.

Alfonso F. Abdo

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COUNCIL OF CHAMBERS & ASSOCIATIONS OF PRODUCTION, QUITO ECUADOR

Organizational leader, with more than 10 years of experience in managing entities in the private and public sectors, project execution and strategic direction.

Currently Executive Director of the Council of Chambers and Associations of Production, Quito — Ecuador. He has led capital goods manufacturing companies such as Industria Acero de los Andes in the Oil & Gas sector; and contributed to promote local content initiatives as Board Member of the metal mechanic industry federation - FEDIMETAL.

In the public sector, he served as Executive Director of the Local Economic Development Agency — CONQUITO, entity that promotes municipal procurement from small business, among other development projects.

He has a B.A. in Business Management and Marketing from San Francisco de Quito University (Quito/Ecuador) and a Master Degree in Public Policy from Torcuato di Tella University (Buenos Aires/Argentina), currently he is attending the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship at Michigan State University (MI/USA).

He strongly believes in the transformational power that finding purpose has on people and corporations.

Luke Balleny

Director of Standards and Partnerships, The Copper mark

Luke has many years of experience working with a diverse range of stakeholders to assist responsible mining and metals companies in their efforts to contribute effectively to sustainable development. He was previously a Manager at the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) where he led their tax, transparency and governance work, helped to develop ICMM’s Mining Principles and managed ICMM’s commodity and national/regional association members. Prior to joining ICMM, Luke worked as a journalist at the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters and before that as a corporate compliance officer focusing on anti-bribery, corruption and ethics. Luke has a BA from Brown University in International Relations and a MA from The School of Oriental and African Studies in International Studies and Diplomacy.

Maureen Coulas

DEPUTY DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRADE DIVISION OF THE LANDS AND MINERALS SECTOR, NATural resources canada

Maureen Coulas joined Natural Resources Canada in 1999. She is currently the Deputy Director in the International Affairs and Trade Division of the Lands and Minerals Sector at Natural Resources Canada  (NRCan).She manages a team responsible for natural resource governance and engagement, promoting responsible business practices and bilateral relations with mining sector issues with countries in Africa and the Americas.

Prior to joining the public sector, Maureen worked for several years in Toronto as a Marketing Manager for Noranda Inc. (now part of Glencore),  a global  natural resources company, where she managed the raw materials requirements of the company’s five Canadian and South American based copper metallurgical facilities. Maureen has a business degree from Concordia University in Montreal.

Sophie Donszelmann

Senior Programme Officer, The International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM)

Sophie Donszelmann is a senior programme officer at the International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM) responsible for the organization’s mineral resource governance and transparency work, including its relationship with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). She also contributes to ICMM projects enhancing mining’s economic contribution to local communities.

Prior to joining ICMM, Sophie worked in the corporate philanthropy programme of a major investment bank, working with charities across EMEA to identify opportunities for employee engagement and deploy emergency funds. Sophie has also worked in the London School of Economics’ Institute of Global Affairs, researching US politics and policy. Outside of work, Sophie is a certified international election observer.

Sophie has a BSc in Government from The London School of Economics and an MPhil in Political and Economic Sociology from the University of Cambridge. Her dissertation explored civil society’s engagement with mining in post-conflict states.

Louise Flynn

SENIOR TECHNICAL ADVISOR, DAI

With over 25 years’ experience, Ms. Flynn’s career can be characterized as multi-disciplinary in which she has bridged the environmental, public health, and local content fields. As an environmental consultant for Ecology and Environment, Inc.(E & E) for more than 20 years, she investigated hazardous waste sites, conducted risk assessments, and conducted environmental impact assessments both domestically and internationally.  More specifically, she was a key manager/team member for environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and environmental, social, and health impact assessments (ESHIAs) conducted for major energy and sustainable development projects. She identified and addressed potentially significant, project-related environmental, social, and health impacts across the project’s whole operational life cycle—from exploration through to the decommissioning phases—in order to improve the decision-making process; ensure that United States government agencies and involved international authorities/ministries approve the project; and ensure support from affected stakeholders. She developed EIAs to secure loans/funding for environmental improvement/sustainability projects, reviewed the public health impacts resulting from proposed construction and operation of infrastructure development projects, and developed ecological and human risk assessment problem formulation documents. 

For six years, she supported USAID Global Health projects in which she had bridged the environmental and public health fields through researching linkages between environmental, animal, and human health and developing tools for extractive industries to use to evaluate their preparedness and response to disease outbreaks and identifying environmental and public health controls that they could implement within their fenceline. 

From 2017 to the present, she is working with DAI’s Sustainable Business Group managing industrial baseline and technical vocational educational training institute surveys to support local content development in emerging markets, and supporting the implementation of multiple supplier capacity development programs through the Centre for Business Development, an enterprise development center in Georgetown, Guyana.

Steffen Kramer

SENIOR MANAGER, SUSTAINABILITY, KPMG

Steffen has worked for over 10 years as a sustainability consultant and corporate manager, developing and implementing strategies, systems and projects. As a manager in the mining industry for several companies, Steffen spent considerable time at mine sites and in communities, working with external and internal stakeholders to manage sustainability risks and impacts ranging from local employment to greenhouse gas emissions. He has been the corporate lead for, among other things, human rights, supply chain due diligence, local procurement, artisanal mining, and sustainability reporting. His work has included conducting internal assessments against the Responsible Gold Mining Principles and Towards Sustainable Mining, and co-managing a large resettlement in Western Africa.

Steffen previously worked at Stratos, a sustainability management consultancy, on projects such as regional socio-economic analyses, multi-stakeholder governance frameworks, and Indigenous consultation planning. Prior to receiving an MBA from York University, Steffen worked in South Sudan for two years on a disease eradication project as a technical consultant and operations manager.

Gosia Nowakowska-Miller

Local Supplier Development and Community Investment Specialist, International Finance Corporation (IFC)

Gosia Nowakowska-Miller is a Local Supplier Development and Community Investment Specialist at the International Finance Corporation (IFC). As part of IFC's Infrastructure and Natural Resources Advisory team, she works on enhancing local benefits of the investments IFC makes around the world. She advises private sector clients with designing and implementing local procurement strategies, community investment strategies, youth empowerment and gender strategies. Gosia has co-authored the “Guide to Getting Started in Local Procurement” and is part of the core team organizing IFC’s annual 2-day Sustainability Exchange. She has been with the IFC for 15 years working on small and medium enterprise (SME) capacity building and local procurement issues primarily in the oil, gas and mining sectors. 

Prior to IFC, Gosia worked at SCOR Reassurance in Paris developing new markets in Eastern Europe; and at TCH Systems in Warsaw, Poland launching business management software for SMEs. Gosia has a BA in International Relations from Boston University, an MBA, and an MA in International Affairs from George Washington University.

Fatma Nyambura

Policy Officer, Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative

Fatma Nyambura is a Policy Officer at the Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative and works on the thematic areas of Commodity Trading, State Owned Enterprises Transparency and Energy Transition. Fatma also provides project management support to the policy team and assists in co-ordinating the Commodity Trading Working Group and State Owned Enterprise Network. 

Prior to joining the EITI, Fatma worked at Adam Smith International and was involved in the implementation of extractive industry and private sector programmes in Ghana, Georgia, Liberia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Tasks she undertook include legislative drafting, capacity building, stakeholder engagement, recruitment, procurement, contract management and management of project finances.  

Fatma is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a Certified Public Secretary. She holds a Masters in Mineral Law and Policy from University of Dundee, Post-Graduate Diploma in Law from the Kenya School of Law and a Bachelor of Law from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa.

Warwick Strong

Corporate Social Responsibility Leader, Cummins INC

Warwick has had a uniquely varied career. He was born on a remote farm in Zimbabwe and was privileged to grow up on a continent abundant in color and vitality. Despite being educated in the United Kingdom and having served in the British Army after his college studies, he remains intrinsically connected to Africa and has focused on shaping his career in international development work. From 2005 - 2015, he worked in the mining industry, specifically within the supply chain and local content/local business development channel.

From 2016-2018 he worked as a consultant for DAI, an international development firm based in Washington D.C. There he focused on local content for the mining industry. He now heads up Corporate Social Responsibility for the distribution unit of Cummins Inc., a Fortune 500 company based in Indiana. Cummins produces power systems for clients around the world and invests heavily in social and environmental programs. He focuses on building social license in emerging markets for the firm, especially in Africa and the Asia Pacific region.