Mario De Freitas Silva is Director of Mining and Geotechnical at Vale Base Metals. He is a global mining executive with deep expertise in mine planning, geotechnical engineering, and operational transformation. As Global Director of Mining, he leads strategic mine planning, mineral resource and reserves governance, geotechnical risk management, and value‑optimization initiatives across complex operations. His career includes senior leadership roles in mine technical services, transformation, and operations, alongside prior consulting experience at McKinsey & Company. He also brings strong technical foundations from Deswik Mining and holds a master’s degree in mining engineering from McGill 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.

With over a decade of experience in operations, engineering and technical services roles, Luke has worked across four continents and more than ten countries, covering a diverse range of mining methods and commodities. He began his career as a mining engineer in open cut operations in South Australia before transitioning into technical services and customer-focused roles supporting mine design, optimisation and scheduling teams globally. This blend of site-based experience and exposure to diverse operational challenges has shaped Luke’s focus on improving how mining professionals interact with data and decision workflows. He is particularly interested in reducing the friction between measurement, analysis and action by embedding institutional knowledge into structured, scalable systems. Now part of Maptek’s platforms team, Luke works on the development of cloud-first data and compute frameworks that move beyond file-based workflows toward integrated, auditable decision support environments. His work aims to help mining professionals spend less time managing data and more time applying engineering judgement to create value.

Belinda Yaqub is a Principal Engineer in Strategic Production Planning, based in Perth, with a strong track record in long‑term mine planning, optimisation, and strategic decision support. She is known for bringing structure and clarity to complex planning problems, particularly in environments characterised by uncertainty, competing priorities, and tight timelines. Hyper‑organised by nature, Belinda’s ability to influence outcomes under timeline pressure is a key strength. She combines analytical rigour with a pragmatic, people‑centred approach, helping teams align around decisions that are both technically robust and practically achievable. Her work often sits at the intersection of planning, optimisation, and stakeholder decision‑making, where trust, communication, and clarity are critical. Belinda is currently undertaking a Master’s in Business Psychology, reflecting her interest in how human behaviour, cognitive bias, and organisational dynamics shape strategic outcomes. She is particularly passionate about improving how complex technical information is translated into decisions that people can confidently act on. Belinda brings a grounded, practitioner perspective on strategic planning that recognises both the technical and human dimensions of value creation.