Dr Gerard Lyons is Chief Economist and Group Head of Global Research at Standard Chartered. He is a Committee Member of the Hong Kong Association, a Council Member of the University of Warwick, on the International Council of the Bretton Woods Committee, a Council Member of the No Campaign, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He also sits on the operating committee of the World Economic Forum's financial services group and is heavily involved with Asia House, the Japan Society and the UK Business Council for Britain. His PhD from the University of London is on, "Testing the efficiency of financial futures markets".

James Steel is HSBC’s Chief Commodities Analyst with specific responsibilities for precious metals, having joined HSBC in May 2006. Previously Jim ran the New York research department for Refco, a large US commodities brokerage house. Jim also worked for The Economist in the Intelligence Unit as an economist specialising in commodity producing nations. Jim’s primary duties at HSBC concern the production of daily market reports, including long term outlooks for the precious and base metals. These include supply/demand and price forecasts, as well as qualitative analyses. Jim advises on hedging strategy and he gives price forecasts for the precious metals, and is often quoted in the financial media. He studied economics in London and New York.

John Reade is the Global Head of Metals Strategy for UBS Investment Bank based in London. Before taking on this role in 2005, John spent six years as a precious metals strategist and, concurrently, two years as EMEA emerging market currency strategist. Prior to this, John spent three years as a gold equity analyst with UBS in Johannesburg; he was rated one of the top analysts in the field in a 1999 Financial Mail survey. Before starting at UBS, John was a gold equity analyst with Barnard Jacobs Mellet in Johannesburg, and spent eight years as a mining engineer and production manager for the third largest gold producer in South Africa. John graduated from Imperial College London in 1986 with an honours degree in mining engineering. He is a regular speaker at gold industry conferences, and a member of the public affairs committee of the LBMA.

Michael D. Lynch Bell has spent over 33 years with Ernst & Young specialising in providing services to extractive industry clients worldwide. Michael concentrates on providing lead advisory, financial advisory, transaction support and project finance support to a wide cross section of the mining industry, as well as investment banking intermediaries. He also acts as an expert witness in giving evidence in contract disputes. Michael has led the flotation of over 60 companies on various stock exchanges around the world and has advised on numerous stock exchange transactions. His mining clients include Xstrata, Ferrexpo, Kazakhmys and Gem Diamonds. Michael is also a Member of the Expert Group to the United Nations Framework Classification Ad-hoc Committee on Reserves and Resources.

Dr David Rutledge joined DMCC in February 2003 as Executive Director, Commodities. Since December 2004 he has been CEO, responsible for the overall management of DMCC’s activities in the commodities, precious metals and diamonds sectors. He has been instrumental in the development and management of Dubai’s newly formed multi-commodities exchange – the Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange - of which he was the founding Chairman and is now a non-executive Director. He is also the Chairman of the Dubai Diamond Exchange. Previous positions include Managing Director, Zurich Capital Markets; Chief Executive, Sydney Futures Exchange; Chief Executive of the Queensland Sugar Corporation; Vice President and Chief Economist at the New York Comex Exchange; And Senior Vice President – Market Development, New York Board of Trade.

Dr Paul Walker is the Chief Executive Officer of GFMS, in addition to being responsible for gold, silver and PGM research in East Asia, India and South Africa. He joined the company in 1995. After graduating with degrees in commerce and economics from the University of Cape Town, Paul worked as an economics researcher for a Member of Parliament in the UK House of Commons before joining the United Nations affiliated International Lead and Zinc Study Group, where he was involved in a wide range of economic studies and forecasts. He has a PhD in the application of mathematical optimisation to large non-linear economic systems from the University of Nottingham in the UK.

Robert Mantse heads the Metals and Mining Equity Research team at Alfa-Bank, the largest non-stated owned bank in Russia. He has over ten years of metals and mining experience,having worked at Salomon Smith Barney Inc (SSB/Citigroup) and Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB) in New York, PricewaterhouseCoopers Securities Inc (PwC) in Toronto and Energy and Management Capital Partners (EMCP) in Budapest. He has spent most of his career working with companies with assets in the emerging markets of the CIS, Latin America and Central Europe. He possesses an MSc in Mining Engineering (and an MBA).

Ian MacDonald, the Executive Director of the Gold & Precious Metals division at Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, is a leading expert in investment banking, commodities and futures markets, and a member of the international gold and precious metals community with over 30 years’ experience. In his new role at DMCC, spearheading the Gold & Precious Metals division, Mr MacDonald will focus on further enhancing Dubai’s role as a global centre for the gold and precious metals trade, through broadening local market horizons in refining, manufacturing and trading skills. Prior to joining DMCC, he has held senior positions at leading institutions such as Commerzbank AG and Credit Suisse in New York, and Billiton (UK) Ltd. (now BHP Billiton), where he was a Director. He was also a board member of the Gold Institute in Washington, D.C for 15 years.

George Milling-Stanley is Director, Official Sector, with the World Gold Council. The Council is an international association of gold producers, headquartered in London and with offices in major markets around the world. Mr. Milling-Stanley is based in the Council’s New York office. In 2002, he became a member of the team that developed GLD, the gold Exchange Traded Fund that was launched on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2004. Before joining the Council in 1996, George worked for six years on the precious metals trading desk of Lehman Brothers, the New York investment bank. His responsibilities included the development of customer business and the firm’s research and analysis of the metals markets. Previously he worked for Consolidated Gold Fields in London, which was at that time the second largest gold mining group in the world. As Chief Precious Metals Analyst, he provided gold market intelligence for the whole group. His duties included researching and writing the company’s authoritative annual survey of the world gold industry. George’s early career was spent as a journalist, including 10 years with the Financial Times in London, where he wrote about the international mining industry.

Owen Rees joined the Exchange Traded Gold team in March 2005 after 5 years at Goldman Sachs International in London, where he had been a senior analyst in the investment banking technology and business intelligence team. Prior to this, Owen worked for both Investec and Nedcor Investment Banks as a senior member of the teams which helped set-up and develop the linked product industry in South Africa. Owen has over 15 years worth of experience in the financial services and management consultancy industries in both the United Kingdom and South Africa. During this time he has worked in areas as diverse as credit and country risk, real time news and information provision, and as a management consultant specialising in the South African mining industry. Owen has a Bachelor of Commerce Degree (Business Economics and Information Systems) from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Peter Hambro was a Director of Smith St Aubyn & Co Ltd, and then Deputy Managing Director of Mocatta and Goldsmid. In 1990 he founded Peter Hambro Ltd as a mining finance house in London. In addition to his Chairmanship of Peter Hambro Mining Plc, Mr Hambro is also non executive Deputy Chairman of Aricom Plc, a non executive director of Russian Timber Group Limited, a director of several subsidiary companies of the Peter Hambro Mining Plc and Peter Hambro Limited groups of companies, a director of SG Hambros Bank & Trust Limited, as well as Chairman of Sundeala Limited.

Adam Fleming joined the family business Robert Fleming Holdings, in 1970. He has a vast experience of operating within the gold mining industries of Southern African, and he joined the board of Harmony as Chairman in 2000. He later became Chairman of FF&P Private Equity in May 2004.