The Galileo Resources board consists of Colin Bird (Executive Chairman), J. Richard Wollenberg (Non-Executive Director), Christopher (Chris) Molefe (Non-Executive Director), Alastair Ford (Non-Executive Director) and Joel Silberstein (Finance Director).
Colin Bird
Executive Chairman
Executive Chairman Colin is a chartered mining engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining with more than 40 years’ experience in resource operations management, corporate management, and finance.
Colin has multi commodity mine management experience in Africa, Spain, Latin America and the Middle East. He has been the prime mover in a number of public company listings in the UK, Canada and South Africa.
His most notable achievement was founding Kiwara Resources Plc and selling its prime asset, a copper property in Northern Zambia, to First Quantum Minerals for US$260 million in November 2009.
Joel Silberstein
Finance Director
Joel holds an Honours Bachelor of Accounting Science degree from the University of South Africa.
He qualified as a chartered accountant with Mazars, Cape Town in 2002, and subsequently joined Toronto-quoted European Goldfields Limited. There he held the position of Group Financial Controller and Vice President Finance, supporting the executive team in growing the company through its exploration and development phases, until it was bought by Eldorado Gold in a C$2.5bn deal.
He joined AIM-traded Xtract Resources plc in mid 2013 and was appointed finance director in February 2014. He has subsequently assisted in several corporate transactions, including those surrounding the Manica gold mining operations, and he has experience of working in multiple jurisdictions around the world. He also joined the Galileo Resources Plc board in October 2020 as Financial Director.
He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of South Africa as well a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Alastair Ford
Non-Executive Director
Alastair Ford has been involved in the mining sector for more than two decades. For many years he was the mining correspondent at The Investors’ Chronicle, the UK’s number one investment magazine. He also played a key role at Minesite.com, the mining investment portal that was prominent during the last mining boom and in the aftermath.
Alastair was subsequently Chief Investment Officer and Chief Executive of Mineral & Financial Investments, an Aim-listed mining and commodities investment vehicle, and is currently a non-executive director of Great Western Mining and Xtract Resources Plc.
J Richard Wollenberg
Non-Executive Director
Richard Wollenberg, was, between 1981 and 1996, an investment consultant with Brown Shipley Stockbroking Limited and has over the past 25 years, been actively involved in a number of corporate acquisitions, mergers and capital re-organisations of public and private companies.
Mr.Wollenberg is currently Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Cardiff Property Public Limited Company, a quoted property investment and development company.
He was also a Non-Executive Director of Kiwara Plc alongside Colin Bird.
Christopher (Chris) Molefe
Non-Executive Director
B.Com (Unin); Post graduate diploma (University of Cape Town)
Mr. Molefe was formerly the Chief Executive of Royal Bafokeng Resources (Pty) Limited and is presently the Non-Executive Chairman of Merafe Resources Limited, a publicly listed company on the JSE Securities Exchange, and a non-executive Director of Capital Oil (Pty) Ltd and Jubilee Platinum.
Mr. Molefe has held several positions in corporate banking and industry for the previous 20 years.
He commenced his career as Group Human Resource Manger at Union Carbide Africa Corporation. His subsequent positions include being the Manager of Corporate Affairs at Mobil Oil Southern Africa (Pty) Limited; an Executive Director at Black Management Forum; a Financial Analyst at Chase Manhattan Bank; the Marketing Manager at African Bank Limited; an Executive Manager at Transnet (Propnet) (Pty) Limited; and an Executive Director at Dipapatso Media (Pty).
Sylvia Vrska
Manager Corporate & Investor Relations
Sylvia has had some 12 years experience in Marketing/Sales.
Her experience had been global, working for Education First (EF) based in Berlin with responsibilities in central Europe and North America. Thereafter she worked in Dubai in architectural and property marketing.
