Derek Galloway is a Principal Engineer in Vale’s Strategic Planning team, with over a decade of international experience specialising in underground mine planning, long range strategy and value driven optimisation. He has worked across multiple countries, commodities and underground mining methods, building a broad technical foundation and a global perspective on creating long term value. Derek’s career spans the full project lifecycle from conceptual studies through pre feasibility and feasibility to execution and operational integration. He focuses on developing strategic, practical and economically optimised plans that translate robust analysis into executable outcomes for underground operations. An advocate for modern planning practices, Derek has implemented advanced mine design and optimisation tools, automated workflows and planning procedures that improve decision quality, cycle time and final project value. His current interests include stochastic planning, cut‑off selection and sequence optimisation. He emphasises value delivery and schedule robustness, supported by practical outputs such as executable schedules with realistic constraints and repeatable workflow

Derek Galloway is a Principal Engineer in Vale’s Strategic Planning team, with over a decade of international experience specialising in underground mine planning, long range strategy and value driven optimisation. He has worked across multiple countries, commodities and underground mining methods, building a broad technical foundation and a global perspective on creating long term value. Derek’s career spans the full project lifecycle from conceptual studies through pre feasibility and feasibility to execution and operational integration. He focuses on developing strategic, practical and economically optimised plans that translate robust analysis into executable outcomes for underground operations. An advocate for modern planning practices, Derek has implemented advanced mine design and optimisation tools, automated workflows and planning procedures that improve decision quality, cycle time and final project value. His current interests include stochastic planning, cut‑off selection and sequence optimisation. He emphasises value delivery and schedule robustness, supported by practical outputs such as executable schedules with realistic constraints and repeatable workflow

Liam is a PhD candidate and research assistant for McGill University's COSMO--Stochastic Mine Planning Laboratory. His work focuses on incorporating production data to update mine planning decisions and integrating planning horizons to create value across the value chain while managing risk.

Will Patton is the Principal of Resource Modelling for BHP's West Australian Iron Ore business, where he focuses on advancing mineral resource estimation and conditional simulation workflows. Will’s experience spans more than 20 years in the mining industry and includes direct shipping iron ores, nickel laterites and iron oxide copper-gold mineral systems. Throughout his career, he has honed his expertise in geological modelling, mineral resource estimation and application of machine learning techniques in resource evaluation and mining production contexts. Will is committed to developing the WA Iron Ore team's skills in data analytics, geostatistics and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Will's strategic vision and collaborative approach have been crucial in aligning resource modelling processes with BHP's broader business objectives and sustainability goals.