Meet the Team

Michelle Ash

Michelle Ash, Technology Executive, has made significant contributions to the mining sector with a focus on Innovation Strategy, Technology, and Digital Transformation.

Michelle is highly passionate about Mining and Infrastructure and remains focused on delivering sustainable solutions that help these sectors to continue to create and shape the world in which we live, through digital transformation and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

As Chair of the Global Mining Guidelines Group – GMG, Michelle has contributed to develop best practices and guidelines for the implementation of technology and socially enabled changes in the mining industry. She is also on the advisory board of several start-ups such as Petra Data Science, OffWorld, Behault, Descartes Labs and MineSpider.

Previously she was, CEO GEOVIA Dassault Systemes, where she helped develop and bring to the industry transformational capabilities. Prior to that she was Chief Innovation Officer at Barrick Gold Corporation where she oversaw the company’s innovation program, looking both at how innovation can drive productivity in the existing business as well as how it can be harnessed to deliver alternative business models.

She began her career as a blasting engineer with Rio Tinto and has held several operational roles in various mining companies and across commodities.

Michelle was named to the 2016 list of “100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining” by Women in Mining UK and won the Technology Innovator of the Year Award by Mines and Technology in 2019.  She holds a degree in Civil Engineering and an Executive MBA from the Melbourne Business School; she also holds a degree in Psychology from Deakin University.

Follow Michelle on Twitter: MichelleAsh18

Kalev Ruberg

Kalev Ruberg has been active in the information systems arena for over 40 years. As a BSc and Masters graduate from MIT, his studies included work at the Architecture Machine Lab (now the Media Lab) before carrying out digital simulation research at the National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) in Washington DC, University of California Berkeley Labs, and then at Georgia Tech, as an assistant professor.

In 1982 he joined Canada’s National Research Council in Ottawa, as a Senior Research Scientist where he developed a number of machine learning algorithms in the artificial intelligence field. Joining IBM Global Services, he designed large machine learning and control systems for IBM Manufacturing and clients worldwide.

In 1998, he was appointed the CIO and Deputy Minister to the Finance Minister, at the Government of Manitoba, where he was responsible for the government’s Information Services. Subsequently, he led development at a B2B e-commerce company, and then became a VP at TELUS, where he was responsible for Application Development, Business Development, and development of the IT strategy and offerings for TELUS’ Healthcare vertical.

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Building on his experience at Telus, Kalev became the CIO and Executive General Manager for Information Services at Placer Dome, formerly the largest gold mining enterprise in the world here he led the restructuring of technology services worldwide. Since 2006, he has been Teck Resources as the CIO Vice President, Teck Digital Systems, where he was responsible for the overall digital systems services and projects for this global mining company. Most recently, Kalev was appointed VP Future and Chief Innovation Officer, where he is exploring the future of mining at Teck. In 2020, Kalev was also appointed adjunct Professor at the Keevil School of Mining Engineering at UBC.

Kalev has published more than 30 papers in proceedings and journals. In 2018, he was named to CIM Magazine’s 2018 Names to Know and is Vice Chair of the Global Mining Guidelines organization.

Helius Guimaraes

Helius started his professional career in 1987 in a start-up company as a technical lead supporting commercial and implementation of an in-house developed Computer Aided Design software for engineering, mining, utilities and government agencies. At this start-up company he also developed an accounting system which was implemented in several organizations. After graduating as a geologist in 1990 and completing a master degree in geosciences, Helius supported the implementation of a new GIS and Remote Sensing laboratory for COMIG – a public organization that promotes mining activities in the Minas Gerais State in Brazil. In 1994 he joined De Beers and developed database and GIS capabilities to support easy access to data for exploration activities in South America. Later he focused on designing and implementing strategies to manage IT, Information Centre, GIS and Drawing departments. One of the strategies involved the digitalization of historic data and information workflows enabling cost effective decision making processes to support diamond exploration projects. In 2001, Helius moved to De Beers Corporate Headquarters in Johannesburg to manage global programmes in all countries De Beers Group Exploration operated – delivering standardized processes and systems as well as supporting the establishment of a global collaborative culture. During this time, he forged strategic relationships with 3rd party vendors for long term value add to support the solutions implemented. In 2003 he completed his MBA and from 2005 developed strategies, architecture, policies, and implemented solutions to support De Beers Group Exploration decision making process in targeting, project reviews, and balancing supply & demand at laboratories spread in different geographical areas. Helius was certified as a Project Management Professional in 2005 and in early 2007 joined Rio Tinto in London to direct the Rio Tinto Exploration Information System & Technology function and the management of its data and information. He led a team, which delivered secure and fit-for-purpose tools and services to facilitate the acquisition, process and interpretation of exploration results. Helius moved to Singapore in 2015 to take on the responsibility for developing strategies and roadmaps for Rio Tinto Information System & Technology through the translation of Rio Tinto’s business objectives into effective IT solutions and standards. He promoted innovation and application of emerging technologies to support Rio Tinto’s strategic objectives. Helius is now based in Perth and leading digital transformation in the Alcoa mining business. Helius was the chair of the Global Mining Guidelines group for 2 years before handing it over to Michelle Ash in 2018.

Andrew Scott

Mark Richards

Mark has been interested in technology in the mining industry for many years since working on the automation of Finsch mine in South Africa. Since then, he has been involved in the design, development and implementation of technology solutions across many facets of mining.

Mark has been active in the mining business for nearly 40 years and is a Professional Engineer in British Columbia, graduating from Camborne School of Mines (UK). He completed a MSc (Mining Engineering) at Queens University (Canada), before starting working for De Beers, working in underground and open pit operations. In the 1990’s Mark was a key advocate in the development of the mine-to-mill philosophy at Highland Valley Copper and subsequently across Teck. He is a keen proponent of the value of cooperation to develop best practices across the industry.

Mark has published papers in proceedings and journals on the development and implementation of technology across the mining space. He completed his MBA at Simon Fraser University in 2015 with a thesis on Technology and Innovation Strategies. He has been involved with GMG since its inception; participating on several working groups, the governance committee and is currently Secretary on the Executive Council.

Mark O’Brien

Mark O’Brien currently serves as the General Manager for Digital Technology & Innovation at CITIC Pacific Mining, the world’s largest magnetite iron ore operation, and China’s largest resources sector investment outside of China. His responsibilities cover strategic engagement with the business, technology leadership and innovation, and ownership of the key application and infrastructure platforms at CPM, across both IT and OT. He has an involvement in mining technology that stretches over 30 years. He is a graduate of Curtin University with an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and has undertaken postgraduate studies in AI, Philosophy and Ethics. Mark is also the Chair of the GMG AI in Mining Working Group, as well as a contributor to national and international collaborations around mining technology.

Ricardo Aguilera

Ricardo, Manager Enterprise Solutions at RPM Global, is an industrial engineer in electronics. He holds an MBA and has over than 25 years of experience in the mining industry in technology innovation, ERP and mining systems implementations and portfolio, program and project management. He is also an entrepreneur and university professor and tutor in innovation.
In his previous role as Mining Technology Innovation Regional Manager for Barrick Gold in South America, he led a functional team of engineers acting as the subject matter expert in mining IT, process plant IT, maintenance IT and data analytics systems. In this role, he was responsible for making a significant contribution to shaping how information technology efficiently serves the operational/mining side of the business.

Laura Mottola

Laura Mottola is the President and CEO of Flow Partners Inc., a Canadian consulting company with operations in Chile, and Director of Great Lakes Graphite Inc., a company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. She is recognized globally as a leader in Lean Mining®, Mining Automation, Technology and Innovation in the natural resources sector. Laura is a mining engineer with a Masters of Engineering in Mining Automation from McGill University. A seasoned professional and business leader with more than 20 years of global experience in mining, Laura was named one of 100 most inspirational women in mining by Women in Mining UK. Laura is dedicated to Lean Thinking, Methodology, Lean Mining®, Innovation, development integration of concepts from other industries, and multidisciplinary approach strategies. She is a Co-Founder of the Lean Institute Canada and the Founder of the Lean Mining® Institute. She is passionate about creating value, increasing productivity, social, environmental responsibility and teamwork in mining. Laura brings the multidimensional leadership and vision needed to transformation the mining sector and to generate dynamic and diverse opportunities within it. Laura has personally worked with clients such as Yamana Gold, Sherritt International Corp., Goldcorp, KGHM International, Sierra Gorda S.C.M., KMC Mining, Rio Tinto Technology & Innovation, IAMGold, Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, Alcoa, Syncrude, Suncor, Cambior, Inco, was a council member of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum and currently is the Leader of the Integrated Operations Working Group for Global Mining Standards and Guidelines Group.

Patrícia Procópio

An expert in the application of technologies towards mining solutions, Patrícia Procópio has founded XRLab, which focuses in immersive and virtual experiences. With over 30 years of experience in mining, she is also the founder and president of MP Consulting, a consulting firm specialized in geotechnologies and geoinformation solutions for environmental, mining, engineering and agrobusiness. Prior to leading her own businesses, Patricia spent 17 years with Vale, where she led many innovative projects, including the implementation of their advanced decision making virtual room, the infrastructure for spatial data- GISMineral, Global Geological Database Management System-GDMS, among many others. With a PhD in geology and specialization in Geoprocessing, Procópio’s projects have been recognized internationally, including award winning projects in the: Geospatial World Excellence Awards in Amsterdam (2012),  Geospatial Latin American Excellence Award (2011), GIS Award in San Diego (2010 and 2006), MundoGeoconect and DroneShow  (2019 and 2014) and Inova Vale (2010). Procopio is also committed to making mining a more inclusive industry, and in 2019 became on of the founders and president of Women in Mining Brasil.

Jean-Jacques Verhaeghe

Andrea Nichiporuk

It was love at first sight. Hands furiously filling a wall with multicoloured Post-It notes in an effort to identify a problem and plan how to tackle it – [swoon!] Andrea knew she’d found her perfect match.

For more than 20 years Andrea has worked in communications and publications in the mining industry. She joined the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) in 1998, rising through the ranks to the final position of Communications Manager. During her time with CIM she got to work on her dream project: launching a magazine. After 18 months of 14- to 16-hour hour days, working 7 days a week, CIM Magazine was born. It was the world’s greatest arts & crafts project! In July 2018 she joined GMG as Communications Manager.

When she’s not engaging with some of the nicest and funniest people in the most amazing industry, she’s counting down the days until she can take that coveted walk down the aisle – the airplane aisle that is. Mere days before the pandemic hit, she was scheduled to travel to Sweden on business but, more importantly, for a much anticipated train ride up North to see the Northern Lights. Until then, she will have to contend with listening to ’90s tunes and eating smores around the campfire looking up at the twinkly night sky.

She hopes to one day fulfill her dream of seeing, in person, a bucketwheel excavator in action. If anyone knows a guy who can make that happen, please call me.

Christina Rakobowchuk

Elaine Kinsella

Elaine loves working with volunteers. For more than 34 years, she worked for the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum (CIM), first in the accounting department and then joining the membership team in 2017 as the Constituent Services Coordinator. Her main goal was to build relationships to truly understand volunteers’ needs, support them and enable them to succeed.
Elaine spends her free time practicing the piano, riding her motorcycle, and spending time with her family, friends, and dogs.

Francine Harris

Francine joined GMG in 2018 as a technical writer and editor with a passion for learning and for organizing long and complicated texts. She rose to the title of “word wizard,” which is mostly just a knack for googling and an angelic patience with organizing pages and pages of jot notes. She is very happy to work for an organization that allows her to learn something new every day while working with experts from around the world to make a difference for an essential industry.

Francine holds a MA in English (2018) and a BA in English and Communications Studies (2013) from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. She specialized in medieval stories about magical babies, murder, philosophy, and child-stealing unicorns. She also worked as a research assistant on a book project, for which one task involved condensing information from a 350-page Victorian treatise on how rats will take over the world into a short annotation. These skills have been surprisingly transferable to this role. Her past freelance work editing academic papers, reports, and dissertations for Engineering students may have helped too.

In her spare time, Francine’s interests include chicken keeping, classical music, figure skating, and reading modern stories about magical babies, murder, philosophy, and child-stealing unicorns.

Heather Ednie

Learning opportunities never stop as we build a global, multi-stakeholder and volunteer-driven organization to drive an innovation community in support of a safe, secure, productive, and responsible mining industry. Heather has more than 20 years of experience in association leadership, collaboration facilitation, engagement and communications within the mining and metals sector. Totally charged by opportunities to empower people to excel, while steering an organization on a path to achieve sustained, high-level growth. Dedicated to improving the outreach of proactive, responsible, and safe organizations.

Heather Turnbull

Heather brings a wide range of experience to the team. As a stay-at-home mother for a number of years, Heather was a highly involved community leader, as a volunteer at the local school and on other committees in the municipality. She also worked in various support staff positions at the school, most recently as the school secretary. Prior to that, Heather was the administrative assistant to the Executive Director of the Trans Canada Trail Foundation in Montreal, where she gained an understanding and appreciation of the importance of volunteers and the need to work together. Heather is impressed by the work carried out by dedicated Global Mining Guidelines Group volunteers from around the world, and all levels of the industry, who share a vision of cleaner, safer, more efficient mining. Heather has a background in land management and served for 14 years as president of a local non-profit organization dedicated to helping people in need. She looks forward to broadening her exposure to the mining industry and helping groups collaborate toward this new future.

Holly Arsenault

Holly joined GMG in the spring of 2020 as an Administrative Assistant, after making the long distance move from Alberta to Quebec. She brings with her 10 years of administration experience with a can-do attitude, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Holly joined GMG excited with the possibility of travelling the globe for work, however 2 weeks after she was hired the pandemic hit! So, until our world can right itself you can find her in virtual meetings trying desperately to hide her family from the camera view.

Holly loves spending time outdoors with her husband whether it be playing a good round of golf or going on adventures with their fur-baby, a very wiggly, lovable Boxer named Bo. Of course, living in Quebec means lots of snow and cold temperatures during the winter months, during this time you can usually find her binge watching a good crime tv series or reading a mystery novel.

With the help of GMG Holly hopes to strengthen and grow her knowledge of the mining industry enabling her to be part of the change and innovation in a larger way. She looks forward to the day when she can travel and experience the industry first hand, while also meeting in-person the amazing community of people that make up GMG.

Laura Foley

Laura was born at age zero and is currently surviving as a living organism on this planet.  Her biology consists of three components – a structural mass, a nervous system and a muscular system – thus allowing her to be an enthusiastic, engaging team player, problem solver extraordinaire and a genuinely delightful person. For more than 20 years Laura has honed her skills as the Membership Engagement Coordinator at the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM). She strives to go above and beyond to provide excellent customer care.

Laura possesses mad crafting skills – wielding a hot glue gun with minimal damage to her fingers. She is excited to start a new chapter with the support of old friends and making new ones along the way.

Maria McQueen

Maria has been an Executive Assistant for seven years, of which four of those years were spent in the mining industry in Chile and Canada. She speaks four languages: English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and French is in the works!

She organized and managed annual corporate mine tours and meetings in South America. Now, she is excited to join GMG to help collaborate on planning and executing projects and events for an industry that’s facing critical challenges and opportunities.

In addition to her passion for working in a collaborative work environment, she also loves real estate and hospitality. You can find her checking her properties on different short-term rental platforms during her free time.

Michael Girgis

Michael joined GMG as a technical writer and editor during the summer of 2021, just as the pandemic started to die down. He started his educational journey studying water and wastewater at Algonquin College then moving on to a broader program, Environmental Studies at Carleton University. After graduating he worked in environmental consulting focusing on environmental hazards for almost 2 years where he found his passion for writing various technical reports and providing clear content to clients. He then went back to Algonquin College to study technical writer to enhance those skills and start on a new career path.

Regardless of the weather he is always trying to be outdoors as much as possible where he is found, or not found, in random forests capturing photos of nature. Two years before the pandemic hit, Michael had a goal of traveling to a new country every year and has so far crossed off Iceland and Colombia. When he isn’t found outdoors, he is usually found reading or writing dark fiction stories or playing video games.

As a recent graduate from the technical writer program, Michael hopes to expand his technical writing and editing skills at GMG while learning about the mining industry and great advances accomplished and to come.

Saundra Diardichuk

Saundra has extensive experience in non-profits since 2009. She has held many roles and seen all facets of an organization, including volunteer management, training, and organizing programs and events. With an earlier career in planning in feature film and documentaries, Saundra has travelled and lived in Cancun, Los Angeles, Tampa, and Calgary.

Part of Saundra’s non-profit work has been in education working on a team helping children with special needs, where she gained an appreciation for the power of collaboration and the importance of interconnectedness.

With a growth mindset, Saundra is always striving to develop effective plans and strategies that offer strong support to an organization.  As a new GMG member, Saundra is eager to learn more about the mining industry and is grateful to be part of the team.

In her free time, Saundra can be found indulging in a good book, practicing yoga, trying out new recipes, and enjoying the outdoors with family.

Willow Daigle

Willow joined GMG in December 2021 with five years of experience in Business Administration, one year of which spent in the mining industry.  She studied Front End Web Development in 2020/2021, and enjoys building websites in her free time.

In February of 2022, her and her husband moved from Canada to the Southern coast of Spain.  When she isn’t on the computer she can usually be found doing anything outdoors, cooking, reading a thriller, doing yoga, or trying to kidnap stray cats.

Willow is excited to have the opportunity to contribute to a great team, learn more about the mining industry, and grow within her role at GMG.