Ian joined the CM Group as a senior associate in late 2012. He comes to the Group as one of the most experienced and respected figures in the global Al industry and a leader in business improvement. Ian’s career has included asset management and improvement, particularly through the primary Al value chain; from mining and refining through to smelting and value-added products. Ian has a successful track record in asset improvement and optimisation. He has successfully served as Project Director for smelting and alumina projects, and as COO for group asset operations, achieving world class results in establishing, growing and optimising the businesses involved.

Professor John Grandfield has 30 years experience in aluminium and magnesium research, development and commercialisation of new technologies in smelting, continuous casting and metal refining, plant benchmarking, and technology reviews. His widely published work on direct chill and ingot casting has been celebrated and awarded both internationally and within Australia. John is regularly invited to give training courses, participate in in-house innovation workshops, conduct R&D program reviews, holds an Adjunct Professor position in the High Temperature Processing group at Swinburne University of Technology and chairs the Australasian Aluminium Cast House Technology conference.

Suren is a respected general manager with demonstrated success in sales and marketing, business and project development, and business analysis gained predominantly in the mining and metals sector. Most recently he was Xstrata Zinc Australia’s GM of Sales and Marketing accountable for a sales book of greater than 1Mt zinc and lead concentrates valued at over US$1b in annual revenue covering all mine gate to market logistics, shipping, sales administration and market analysis. He has held senior roles in small and large cap mining and metals companies, and global engineering and construction companies. Suren has extensive experience and capabilities in commerce, logistics, operations, and high value capital projects in a variety of process industries – zinc, lead, aluminium, magnesium, and petroleum/petrochemical.

Jim has a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and 34 years of experience in researching the international metals and mining industries.

Until June 2013, he was Chairman of Commodities at Macquarie, having worked for Macquarie for 19 years. He headed up a 10 person research team in London, Singapore and Shanghai which services the equity, LME trading and corporate advisory divisions of the bank with steel, coal, metals and minerals research and market intelligence. Jim and his team at Macquarie were regularly ranked number one in various surveys of commodities research among equity investors for over a decade.

Prior to Macquarie, Jim worked for 10 years at CRU International, where he headed up a team specialising in special steels (including stainless steel) and steelmaking alloys (mainly manganese, silicon, chrome, nickel and molybdenum). While at CRU, Jim also undertook major studies on metallurgical coal and iron ore. Before joining CRU, Jim worked as a marketing analyst at New Zealand Steel.He has also worked as an Associate Director of Metals and Mining Research at Shearson Lehman Hutton Securities.