Commercial Director

About this role

Commercial Director

About the company:

In the coming decades, our world needs substantially more critical minerals such as copper, lithium, and cobalt, to build electric infrastructure, vehicles, data centers, and electronics. The mining industry is making 10x fewer discoveries per dollar spent on exploration compared to 30 years ago, because the easy-to-find, near surface deposits have largely been discovered.

KoBold is a leading scientific mineral exploration, mine development, and technology development company. Our goal is to turn mineral exploration into a repeatable science to make discoveries faster—by integrating artificial intelligence, human intelligence, and new technology. We made our first discovery—Mingomba, one of the world’s largest undeveloped high-grade copper deposits—after spending materially less than the industry average. This asset is expected to operate for decades, and be a leading global copper supplier. KoBold is actively running exploration programs in 8 countries worldwide, all with the potential for another high-quality discovery.

We are developing Mingomba by applying the same technical rigor to resource development and mine planning as we do to exploration. Mingomba is also a scientific laboratory where we prototype new technology and workflows, combined with the expertise of veteran engineers. Our multidisciplinary team consists of mine and processing engineers, geologists, data scientists, software engineers, community, health & safety, construction, and operations specialists. We want to develop world-class mining projects that are safer and have more predictable outcomes for ourselves, partners, and communities.

KoBold is privately held; investors include institutional asset managers T. Rowe Price and Canada Pension Plan Investments; technology venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, BOND Capital, Durable Capital, StepStone, and Standard Investments; and strategic natural resources companies BHP and Mitsubishi.

About the role

This is a senior Engineering leadership role for the development of a significant Copper mining complex in Zambia. The Mingomba deposit contains over 10 million tonnes of copper more than half of which exceeds 6% grade. This role will help turn that world class deposit into a world class mine.

The Commercial Director establishes the commercial strategy, contracting approach, procurement and market engagement plan, and contractor management disciplines required to deliver the Mingomba project safely, competitively, and predictably. The role owns the commercial pathway from PFS and engineering delivery through package strategy, tendering, negotiation, award, contract administration, contractor performance, transition to operations and commercial close out. The Mingomba project is expected to require capital expenditure of more than US$2 billion, so the role requires a commercial leader who has built and run major-project commercial functions before.

What this role is accountable for delivering

This role provides the strategic commercial leadership for a significant greenfield project by setting the commercial direction, developing and implementing the strategies that flow from it and building and directing the team that delivers them. The successful candidate will be measured on:

• A commercial strategy — delivery model, contracting approach, market engagement, and packaging — approved through project governance, delivered on schedule, and updated as conditions change.

• A capable, high performing contracting, procurement and supply chain team built, developed and directed to deliver the targets with clear accountabilities and growing local capability

• Major packages tendered and awarded to the baseline schedule with no critical path slippage attributable to procurement or contract formulation

• Final contract outlays within the agreed band of the approved estimate, with commitments, cost exposure and forecasts visible to the project and finance at all times.

• Claims and variation exposure quantified, contained and actively managed with no material unresolved disputes at handover to operations

• Local content targets met with auditable evidence of local supplier participation and capability development

• A procurement and contracting function that passes independent commercial audits and stage gate review without material qualification

• A clean integrity record with no sanctions, bribery or conflict of interest findings in the supply chain and contracting workflows.

Responsibilities

• Commercial governance and routines: Establish the commercial policies, approval thresholds, procurement gates, contract governance, tender review cadence, award recommendations, change controls, claims controls, and vendor management routines needed to support safe, competitive, and predictable project delivery.

• Project delivery model and contracting options: Develop the project delivery model and contracting strategy (EPC, EPCM, design-and-build, owner-managed, or hybrid), assessing each option against risk, cost, schedule, market capacity, local content, and value for money

• Commercial leadership and decision support: Lead commercial inputs into the project, executive forums and technical committees ensuring that contracting and procurement status, market intelligence and feedback, contractor risks, cost exposure, and package readiness are visible and early enough for management action.

• Interface with engineering: Partner with the Senior Engineering & Integration Manager under a defined split of authority (engineering responsible for design authority and technical bid evaluation). The Commercial Director is responsible for commercial evaluation, contract formation and administration, with a single joint change control process spanning technical and commercial impacts.

• Commercial roadmap and readiness: Develop the commercial plan for engineering, construction, and transition to operation

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