Board of Directors

Date of appointment

Lucio Genovese joined the Board on 13 February 2019 and was appointed Non-executive Chair on 24 August 2020. From 1 July 2023, Mr Genovese is acting as Executive Chair on an interim basis, assuming leadership of the Group.

Background and experience

Lucio is the CEO of Nage Capital Management in Baar, Switzerland. In September 2021, Lucio was appointed as Chair of CoTec Holdings Corp. He also serves on the board of Ferrexpo AG. He previously worked at Glencore International AG where he held several senior positions. Lucio previously served on the Board of Ferrexpo plc from 2007 to 2014. Between 2016 and 2023, Lucio was on the Board of Nevada Copper Inc.

Lucio is a Chartered Accountant and has a B.Comm and B.Acc from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (South Africa).

External appointments

Chair of CoTec Holdings Corp.

Committee membership

Chair of the Nominations Committee.

Date of appointment

Fiona MacAulay joined the Board on 12 August 2019 and was appointed as Senior Independent Director on 11 February 2022.

Background and experience

Fiona is a Chartered Geologist with over 35 years’ experience in the upstream oil and gas sector including key roles in a number of leading oil and gas firms across the large, mid and small cap space including Mobil, BG Group, Amerada Hess and Rockhopper. She was a Chair of IOG Plc (AIM listed) since January 2019 and May 2023 after being appointed to the board in July 2018. Between 2017 and 2022, Fiona was on the Board of AIM listed Coro Energy Plc, where she was a member of the Remuneration committee and chaired the HSE committee, before stepping down in March 2022. Fiona was a member of the Exploration Advisory Board of Cairn India from 2018 to 2021. Fiona was CEO of Echo Energy PLC from 2017 to 2018 and a Non-executive Director from 2018 to 2019. She was Chief Operating Officer of Rockhopper Exploration PLC from 2013 to 2017.

External appointments

Non-executive Director of Chemring Group Plc since June 2020.
Non-executive Director of Costain Group PLC since April 2022.
Non-executive Director of Dowlais Group Plc since April 2023.

Committee membership

Chair of the Remuneration Committee, member of the Committee of Independent Directors and Nominations Committee.

Date of appointment

Vitalii Lisovenko joined the Board on 28 November 2016.

Background and experience

Vitalii is currently a non-executive advisor to the Minister of Finance of Ukraine, having previously served as an executive counsellor to the Minister of Finance. He has spent most of the past 20 years involved in government finance, developing particular expertise in debt negotiation. From 2014 to 2019, Vitalii was a Non-executive alternate director of Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (Greece) since 2014, having formerly worked there as an Executive Vice President from 2002 to 2004. He has also worked in the private sector, on the executive boards of Ukreximbank (Ukraine) (2006-10) and Alfa Bank Ukraine (2010-14), and was also a Non-executive Director of Amsterdam Trade Bank (2013-2014). In 2005 he served as the head of the Trade and Economic Mission at the Ukrainian Embassy in London. In 1994 Vitalii graduated from the Kyiv State Economic University, where he later obtained a PhD in Economics. He has been an Associate Professor of Finance at the University since 2010 and has produced a number of research papers and other publications.

External appointments

Non-executive Director of the Supervisory Board of National Depository of Ukraine since 2014.

Committee membership

Chair of the Committee of Independent Directors, and a member of the Audit, Nominations and Remuneration Committees. Senior Independent Director until February 2022.

Date of appointment

Natalie Polischuk joined the Board on 29 December 2021.

Background and experience

Natalie is an economist based in Kyiv, Ukraine, with over 25 years of private equity experience in Eastern Europe, having held a number of senior roles at private equity funds in the region. She served on the Board of Lycée Français Anne de Kyiv, from 2014 to 2020, a private co-educational international school in Kyiv. From 2007 to 2014 she headed the Ukraine office of Advent International, a global buyout firm, developing transactions for the firm’s US$1 billion fund focused on Central and Eastern Europe.  In recent years, Natalie has acted as an independent advisor on a number of M&A and due diligence projects in Ukraine in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, software development and other industries. Previous appointments include board of director positions at Isida IVF, USP Compulink and National Cable Networks. Natalie holds MBA degree from Harvard Business School and a BA degree in Economics from the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

External appointments

Member of the Advisory Board of Dobrobut since 2018, the leading private healthcare provider in Ukraine operating a network of hospitals and clinics.

Committee membership

Chair of the HSEC Committee. Member of the Committee of Independent Directors and the Audit Committee.

Date of appointment

Stuart Brown was appointed to the Board on 22 October 2023.

Background and experience

Mr Brown is a seasoned mining executive with extensive board level experience. He previously held both CFO and CEO roles at De Beers and its various subsidiaries which he left in 2011. Most recently, Mr Brown served as President and CEO at Mountain Province Diamonds Inc which he left in 2021, a company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and as CEO of Firestone Diamonds Plc, formerly listed on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange where he established a track record of building teams and leading business transformation to develop lean, agile, high performing organisations.

External appointments

Independent Non-executive Chairman of Lucapa Diamond Company Limited since April 2024.

Committee membership

Chair of Audit Committee and Member of Committee of Independent Directors and Remuneration Committee.

Date of appointment

Nikolay Kladiev joined the Group in 2005. On 4 August 2021, Nikolay was appointed as Group Chief Financial Officer. He was appointed to the Board on 25 May 2023.

Background and experience

During his 17 years with Ferrexpo, Nikolay has overseen FPM's finance function, and has been directly responsible for maintaining the Group's position as a low cost pellet producer during this time and contributed significantly to the Group's IPO. Prior to Ferrexpo, Nikolay held a number of audit positions with Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Nikolay holds a Masters in International Economic Relations from the Kyiv National University of Economics.

External appointments

None

Committee membership

None