Liz is a mining engineer and strategy leader with over 25 years’ experience across operations, corporate development, and strategic mine planning. Her work focuses on improving capital allocation and portfolio decisions through the integration of optimisation, financial analysis, and practical insight.

Dr Steven F Hoerger is Principal Mining Consultant and Owner of Peak View Mine Planning LLC, specializing in strategic mine planning and diagnosis of plan vs actual reconciliation differences. He retired as Group Executive Business, Operations and Project Planning after 30+ years at Newmont Corporation. Dr. Hoerger’s experience includes a variety of financial, management, mine engineering, geostatistics and software development positions at corporate, regional and mine site locations in Colorado, Nevada, Peru, Ghana and Indonesia. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mining Engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering from Michigan Technological University.

Michael Fox Martin is an Executive at Mventech responsible for Technical Delivery across projects and studies. He is a project and study leader with more than three decades of experience spanning engineering and design, procurement, construction management, and operations strategy. Michael is a specialist in project management and risk, with extensive experience guiding projects from early-stage concept through to execution, commissioning, and operational phases. His career has provided deep exposure to the full project lifecycle, enabling him to understand the critical decisions and risks that shape project outcomes. Having served in roles as both a contractor and an owner’s engineer, Michael brings a balanced perspective on project performance, delivery challenges, and risk management. This dual experience has equipped him with valuable insight into aligning technical execution with strategic objectives. He has worked extensively in the mining sector, with a strong focus on advancing projects from concept into execution, ensuring that design, planning, and delivery are aligned to maximise value and minimise risk.

Leigh joined Whittle Consulting in 2023 as a Technical Services Specialist. He holds a PhD in Geology from the Economic Geology Research Centre at James Cook University, where his research focused on the petrology, geochemistry and tectonics of critical mineral systems. This work established a rigorous, systems-based framework for interpreting complex geological datasets, which he now applies to strategic optimisation and operational analysis. Leigh has experience across both open pit and underground operations, supporting the consolidation and refinement of geological databases and resource models to inform production scheduling and life-of-mine planning. Through this work, he has developed a practical understanding of the technical and commercial drivers that underpin both short- and long-term project performance. At Whittle Consulting, Leigh integrates geological insight with statistical analysis in strategic optimisation studies delivered through the Prober framework. This integrated approach generates robust, data-driven insights that support informed decision-making, strengthen strategic planning outcomes, and enhance project value.