Biography

With over 27 years' operational experience in the industrial, mining and construction sectors, Guillaume Bastien has developed expertise in project management and business turnaround.

Having held a number of general, operational and cross-functional management positions in several countries, Guillaume has implemented strategic and marketing orientations in mergers and acquisitions and the management of complex industrial projects.

Guillaume joined UMSI (Groupe Industriel et Minier) in 2020 to oversee the acquisition of Alteo and its industrial and environmental transformation. He is currently a Director of Industrial Projects, with particular focus to build a new alumina plant in Guinea.

Biography

Alan Clark is founder and Managing Director of the CM Group, a privately owned research advisory specialising in the analysis of global base and minor metals industries. Alan is a metallurgical engineer (University of South Australia) with an MBA specialising in Management of Technology (University of Melbourne) and over 30 years’ industry experience. Alan began his career as a research engineer with RioTinto Aluminium (formerly Comalco), later taking on roles with RioTinto in research, process improvement and marketing, before establishing Clark & Marron in 1999, later becoming the CM Group in 2011.

Alan’s experiences cover many of the world’s base metals and minerals industries, including bauxite, alumina, primary aluminium, nickel, magnesium, lithium, scandium, tungsten and molybdenum. Alan is an authority on the global aluminium value-chain; he advises the world’s largest aluminium producers, as well as investment banks, fund managers, governments, trading houses, industry groups and technology providers seeking to better understand the industry. He is a regular speaker at international conferences and events.

Alan has strong connections into China’s base and minor metals industries, forged over more than twenty years of research and consulting in China. He boasts an extensive ‘guanxi’ (network) across the breadth of many of China’s metals industries. Alan has lived and worked in Australia, Europe and China and conducted dozens of on-the-ground research field studies in countries as diverse as Russia, South Africa, Jamaica, Vietnam, Indonesia, Argentina and Guinea.

Biography

Perrine Faye is a member of the executive team and the global head of pricing and editorial at Fastmarkets, a world’s leading Price Reporting Agency with 6 000 price references and multiple benchmarks, including in the aluminium sector. She has over 20 years’ experience in reporting on and pricing commodities markets, especially the oil and metals and mining sectors, and gained an acute understanding of regulatory and compliance requirements through her previous role as Head of Risk & Compliance at Fastmarkets. In the three years, she drove the development of low-carbon aluminium pricing to support the industry’s green transition and provide visibility in the cost and benefit ratio of decarbonization. She holds a Masters in Journalism from London and a degree in International Relations and Politics from France. She has two daughters.

Biography

Sylvie Fraysse is the General Manager of the R&D and Technology department for the Aluminium Group in Rio Tinto. She manages the research and process engineering teams based in Canada (CRDA) and in France (Aluval, LRF). She has held several management positions as technical and project manager for various technology development and sales projects, first in industrials gases, then in aluminium. With her teams, she actively supports the Rio Tinto primary aluminium production through innovative technology bricks development and implementation, and through a strong commitment in the decarbonization roadmap. Sylvie is a graduate of Ecole Centrale de Paris (1988).

Biography

Guillaume de Goÿs is the CEO of Aluminium Dunkerque, one of the largest primary aluminium smelters in Europe, producing rolling slabs and alloyed ingots for the automotive, packaging and industrial sectors. He seats at the board of Aluminium Duffel, a rolling mill located in Belgium. He has held several management positions in France and abroad, as a senior executive and project manager for various global aluminium, graphite, and tyre companies.

Biography

Mr. Chen Kaibin is a professor-level senior engineer, who graduated from Central South University School of Metallurgy and Environment. Currently, Mr. Chen is an off-campus doctoral supervisor of Central South University, the executive director of the China Nonferrous Metals Society, and the general manager of Zhengzhou Nonferrous Metals Research Institute Co., Ltd of CHINALCO. He has completed more than 30 national, provincial and ministerial key projects in China, with more than 80 authorized patents, and more than 100 published academic papers

Biography

Saurabh Khedekar, is an experienced and long serving executive at the Aditya Birla Group. He is a passionate leader currently serving as the CEO of Hindalco's Alumina Business, which comprises of Hindalco’s Specialty Alumina Business and its Metal Grade Alumina vertical.

The Specialty Alumina business is a hi-tech, value-added specialty products business which serves customers across 40 countries globally across diverse industries including the fastest growing markets like EVs, Semiconductors, Electronics and Renewables. On the other hand, Utkal Alumina –the world’s lowest cost alumina refinery represents the Metal Grade Alumina Vertical of Hindalco. Apart from the core alumina businesses, Saurabh is also responsible for Red Mud, Carbon, and Vanadium business verticals at Hindalco.

Saurabh started his journey with the Aditya Birla Group, a $60 Bn diverse conglomerate through their flagship Leadership Program ABGLP and has served in varied capacities with the Group’s Metals, Cement, Apparel and Retail, Pulp and Fiber, Textiles and Trading Businesses and include a stint as Principal Executive to the Group Chairman, Mr Kumar Mangalam Birla.

Saurabh also manages two significant not-for-profit CSR ventures of ABG – Aadyam Handwoven, which is a pan India social enterprise serving the textile handloom communities of India and Hindalco’s Kosala Livelihood and Social Foundation, where he is the Executive Director. By Qualification, Saurabh is a Chartered Accountant and MBA from Indian School of Business (ISB).

Biography

Alex Lowery is the General Manager of Wise Chem and Editor of the Aluminium Plant Safety Blog. He writes the Aluminum Safety Management column for Light Metal Age magazine. He has written dozens of articles focused on safety in the aluminium industry. He is actively involved with numerous aluminium trade associations on a variety of safety topics and has provided safety consultancy on molten metal safety and training for many aluminium companies around the globe. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Biography

Loïc Maenner has 30 years' experience in the aluminium industry. After joining Pechiney in 1995, he held various R&D and management positions in France, Greece and Canada.

Since 2019, he has been Managing Director of TRIMET France, the French subsidy of the German family-owned aluminium producer TRIMET, and in this role oversees the primary aluminium smelter of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and the foundry of Castelsarrasin. TRIMET France produces a wide range of strategic aluminium products, including electrical and mechanical wire rod, rolling slabs and foundry alloys.

Loïc is a fervent advocate of the need to maintain and develop local aluminium production in Europe. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the French Aluminium Association and Chairman of the French Association of Electrometallurgical and Electrochemical Industries.

Biography

Tim Murray is CEO of Cardinal Virtues Consulting, Inc with over 20 years of executive leadership experience and has a wide array of financial experience.

Tim spent 12 years with Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) where he was CEO for 7 years.

Under Tim’s leadership Alba’s successfully completed the Line 6 mega-project. Tim also played an instrumental role in the transformation of Alba's Safety culture.

Prior to joining Alba, Tim spent 10 years with ARC Automotive where in his last role he was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Tim is an expert on Safety Management and was awarded the “CEO Who Gets it” award from the US National Safety Council for his contributions to worker safety.

In 2020, Harvard published the “Managing Blackout at Alba” case study which focused on Tim’s leadership during a crisis.

Tim published his first book called “CEO Words of Wisdom (WoWs)”.

Tim holds an MBA from Vanderbilt University as well as a degree in Accounting from Susquehanna University. He has attended Executive Management Programs at Wharton and Chicago Business Schools. He is also a CPA and speaks basic Arabic.

Biography

Uday Patel has over 30 years of experience in the metals and mining sector covering Aluminium and other metals. He joined Wood Mackenzie in 2014 and is Senior Research Manager, Global Aluminium Markets. His industry experience includes Outokumpu, Ma’aden Saudi Arabia, DUBAL where he contributed to the startup of EMAL phases 1 and 2. During his career he has also worked on a range of projects across the entire aluminium value chain, including detailed market studies, cost analyses and strategic advisory work for clients including rolled producers, aluminium processing companies and financial organizations. Uday is a graduate of the London Business School’s executive management programme, Sussex University and the University of Exeter.

Biography

After graduating in physics and chemistry (1997), Marion completed a PhD and Post-Doc in Germany (ZSW in Ulm) dealing with electrochemistry.  She then joined CEA (the French nuclear and alternative energies research organisation) end of 2001 and participated to the creation of INES (the French National Institute for Solar Energy) where she has been leading a research group (80 people) dealing with PV systems, electrochemical storage and smart electrical systems massively integrating renewables and electric mobility.

Beginning of 2018, she started the Oscaro-Power activity as a founding member and associate, in order for private household owners to self-install PV systems covering the largest share of their yearly electrical consumption.

2023 Marion joined Energy Pool as a chief Development Officer of new flexibility products for the European electricity markets.

His achievements and contributions in the field of metallurgy have been exemplary which includes projects like Usage of Low Density AlF₃ for cost reduction, Copper Insert Cu Cathode for Energy Reduction, throughput improvement in Copper Smelter, etc.

Mr. Kanakanand led many important projects of Hindalco, including the brown field alumina plant expansion at Muri, setting up the AP 36 technology based 360 kt Aluminium Smelter in Mahan and the upliftment and sustainability program at Birla copper.

He brought a paradigm shift in the operational philosophy of the metal industry across Aluminium and Copper, which resulted in embedding Customer Centricity and Sustainability at the core of operations.

Mr. Kanakanand is recipient of the ABG Chairman’s Exceptional Contributor Award and the IIM – Essar Gold medal for outstanding contribution to the Metallurgical Industry.

Mr Kanakanand is a Hons Grad from REC Trichy and has done a Management Programme for technologists from IIM Bangalore.

His leisure time is usually spent traveling with his family to wildlife sanctuaries as has a keen eye for spotting rare bird species and enjoys capturing their beauty through his camera lens.

Biography

Miles Prosser is the Secretary General of the International Aluminium Institute (IAI), the only body that represents the aluminium industry at the global level. With more than twenty years’ experience working on various industry policy issues, Miles brings in-depth knowledge on resource allocation, sustainability and climate change.

Miles joined the IAI from the Australian Aluminium Council, where he served as Executive Director for more than ten years. He leads the IAI to promote the unique and valuable properties of aluminium in sustainable development. He holds an honours degree from the Australian National University. He is a member of the Institute of Directors in London.

Biography

Mr. Sokkuraj Kanakanand is the President & Head of Manufacturing Centre of Excellence at  Hindalco with an exceptional contribution of 33+ years in manufacturing and last 14 years in the field of non-ferrous metal. He is a Production Engineer and spent his earlier years with Hindustan Unilever. He joined the Aditya Birla Group in 2009 and has handled important portfolios like Unit Head- Alumina-Muri, Smelter Head- Mahan, CPP Head- Mahan and Unit Head- Birla Copper. He is known for his technical know-how, meticulously getting into details, great managerial expertise and a leader focussed on Quality, Safety and Sustainability.

His achievements and contributions in the field of metallurgy have been exemplary which includes projects like Usage of Low Density AlF₃ for cost reduction, Copper Insert Cu Cathode for Energy Reduction, throughput improvement in Copper Smelter, etc.

Mr. Kanakanand led many important projects of Hindalco, including the brown field alumina plant expansion at Muri, setting up the AP 36 technology based 360 kt Aluminium Smelter in Mahan and the upliftment and sustainability program at Birla copper.

He brought a paradigm shift in the operational philosophy of the metal industry across Aluminium and Copper, which resulted in embedding Customer Centricity and Sustainability at the core of operations.

Mr. Kanakanand is recipient of the ABG Chairman’s Exceptional Contributor Award and the IIM – Essar Gold medal for outstanding contribution to the Metallurgical Industry.

Mr Kanakanand is a Hons Grad from REC Trichy and has done a Management Programme for technologists from IIM Bangalore.

His leisure time is usually spent traveling with his family to wildlife sanctuaries as has a keen eye for spotting rare bird species and enjoys capturing their beauty through his camera lens.