Dr Sean Xun is the Acting Chief of Global Mineral Analysis Section at National Minerals Information Center, U.S. Geological Survey. His team collect information and publish reports on international mineral industries, including statistics on mineral production and trade, government policies, industry structure, and commodity sector developments.

Mukhamad Mansur is a risk management specialist with more than 15 years of experience across large‑scale mining and minerals development projects. His professional background spans project risk, enterprise risk management, and strategic risk advisory for complex capital projects, including critical minerals and downstream processing initiatives. He has worked extensively in environments characterised by high technical complexity, regulatory uncertainty, multi‑partner joint ventures, and strong community and stakeholder interfaces. His experience covers risk identification and quantification, project risk integration during front‑end loading and execution phases, and the governance of non‑technical risks such as permitting, policy intervention, social disruption, and schedule‑critical escalation pathways. Mukhamad’s work focuses on bridging the gap between engineering delivery and strategic decision‑making, ensuring that geopolitical, sovereign, and ESG‑related risks are appropriately reflected in project schedules, contingency strategies, and investment decisions. He has supported senior project leaders and executives in translating non‑technical risk exposure into practical mitigation actions aligned with delivery certainty and long‑term value preservation. He is currently based in Indonesia and continues to contribute to risk‑based thinking in mining and critical minerals projects through professional practice and industry engagement.

Professor Benjamin C. McLellan has been at Kyoto University in the Graduate School of Energy Science since 2010. Prior to that, he was a research at the University of Queensland`s Sustainable Minerals Institute. He heads a group of around 30 post-graduate researchers. His main research themes at present are critical minerals, just energy-resource transitions, sustainability, and coffee. He has specific interests in hydrogen and deep sea mining. He has authored / co-authored over 150 journal articles, and about the same number of conference papers, across a wide range of topics. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal Resources (MDPI).

Charles Schofield (LLB (Hons), M Bus and MSc (Distinction)) is a senior corporate lawyer with a vast range of experience in helping clients with structuring, financing and implementing major projects in the mining, resources and renewables sectors. He has practised in top-tier Australian firms, served as a partner in major UK international firms and worked in-house for a global mining group. Charles advises on acquisitions, joint ventures, farm-ins, royalties and development agreements, ensuring commercial arrangements align with approvals pathways and delivery risk. Recently he has been involved in asset acquisitions, joint ventures and new processing facilities for critical mineral projects. Charles also holds a MSc (Distinction) in sustainable development, focusing heavily on critical mineral development pathways.