Past event summary

AHMED BIN SULAYEM
EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN & CEO

DMCC

Ahmed Bin Sulayem is the Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DMCC and has driven its growth from a start-up of 28 member companies in 2003 to the world’s leading free zone in 2019 with over 17,000 member companies from 170 countries, employing over 60,000 people.

Tasked with enhancing commodity trade flows through Dubai, DMCC has introduced to market a number of value-added products and services under Mr Bin Sulayem’s leadership. In 2019, DMCC was named the ‘Global Free Zone of the Year’ by The Financial Times fDi Magazine, for a record fifth consecutive year.

Mr Bin Sulayem oversaw the exponential growth of the DMCC Free Zone master development in Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT), a 200-hectare business and residential community in Dubai of over 100,000 people living and working across 68 towers. Mr Bin Sulayem also oversees the development of DMCC’s latest real estate project; the much-anticipated Uptown Dubai district.

Mr Bin Sulayem currently serves as the Chairman of the Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE) and the Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange (DGCX).

The Kimberley Process officially appointed the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the first and only Arab country to Chair the Kimberley Process in November 2015. Shortly after, the UAE Ministry of Economy officially appointed Mr Bin Sulayem as the UAE’s Chair of the Kimberley Process for 2016.

 

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WILLIAM PURPURA

CHAIRMAN/PRINCIPAL

COMEX GOVERNORS COMMITTEE/GLT DIRECT DMCC

William Purpura currently serving his fourth term as Chairman of the COMEX Governors and is a Principal at GLT Direct DMCC.

In 1987 he co-founded Great Lakes Metals which became one of the largest brokers and trading firms on COMEX. Clients included major bullion banks, fund managers and large professional traders. He also served as a Senior Vice President of NYMEX and advisor to the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME).

Mr. Purpura founded Northport Commodities in 2011 with offices in New York, Singapore and Shanghai trading metals and energy markets.  He sold Northport in 2017 to focus on the physical commodity markets.  Northport’s Shanghai company was one of the first foreign firms permitted to trade precious metals on Chinese Exchanges.

He has served as an advisor to various exchanges in the US, China and Singapore along with major banks and brokerages in China and Hong Kong. This included an appointment as an international advisor to the Shanghai Gold Exchange. He has conducted numerous seminars in Asia and lectured at major universities in the region.  He is a member the Board of Advisors to the Faculty of Business at the University of Macau as well as the Advisory Board of Asia Pacific Academy of Economics and Management. (APAEM).

Mr. Purpura is active in the precious metals and energy markets through his firm GLT Group LLP and is one of the founders of Dillon Gage Asia, a distributor for major sovereign mints around the world. In 2019 he formed GLT Direct DMCC in Dubai as a licensed trading firm in oil products and metals.

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JOHN READE
CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST

WORLD GOLD COUNCIL

John Reade joined the World Gold Council in February 2017 as Chief Market Strategist. John is responsible for producing strategy and developing insights on the gold market; leading our global dialogue by engaging with leading economists, academics, policymakers, fund managers and investors on gold; and leading our research team.

John has over 30 years’ experience in the gold industry and related fields, most recently as a partner and gold strategist with Paulson & Co for the past seven years. Prior to that, John worked as a precious metals strategist at UBS for 10 years; a gold equity analyst in South Africa for 5 years; and over 8 years held various positions in production and project evaluation in the gold division of Gencor, then a leading South African mining house.

John has a degree in Mining Engineering from the Royal School of Mines, a constituent of Imperial College, London.

 

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KEVIN TELMER
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

ARTISANAL GOLD COUNCIL

Dr Kevin Telmer, is the Executive Director of the Artisanal Gold Council (AGC), an organization that develops innovative programs to improve the environment, economics, and health of the artisanal and small scale gold mining sector in developing countries. He received his PhD from the University of Ottawa in Geochemistry and held a tenured Professorship at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria from 1999 until 2011 before founding and leading the Artisanal Gold Council.

Dr Telmer started his work in artisanal mining in 1995 in the Brazilian Amazon and in the following 20+ years has worked in numerous countries across three continents. He has extensive experience in technical, policy, and business capacities in the field with miners, governments, international institutions, and industry. He has become a world-renowned expert and a voice on the international stage with numerous publications on the issue, including authoring the global estimate on mercury use in artisanal gold mining used to negotiate the Minamata Convention - a UN Convention to protect human health and the environment from mercury releases, now signed by 128 countries.

Creating sustainable business opportunities for investors that improve the economics, health and environment of miners and their communities is the direction in which Dr Telmer leads the council. A primary goal is to transition the current practices into responsible artisanal gold production in volumes that are significant relative to the size of the burgeoning sector.

Specialities: Historical and Modern Artisanal Gold Mining, Environmental Science and Policy, Geology, Mining, Geochemistry, Gold, International Development, Business and Finance, Impact Investing, Mining Investment 

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RHONA O'CONNELL

HEAD OF MARKET ANALYSIS, EMEA AND ASIA REGIONS

INTL FC STONE

Rhona O’Connell has over 30 years’ experience as a commodities analyst and is a recognised authority in the precious metals sector.  She has worked as a metals market analyst in many aspects of the industry, including the mining sector, commodities broking, and the equity markets; at Shearson Lehman, she was the group precious metals analyst, which involved a combination of the above as well as advising the trading desks and the investment banking division on the outlook for the precious metals markets.

She has held Extel ranking (2^nd place) in the gold sector and has been the Association of Mining Analysts Commodities Analyst of the year. 

She was until recently the Head of Metals Research and Forecasting for the GFMS division of Thomson Reuters, responsible for a team of 15 analysts.

She maintains a high profile in the precious metals sector in particular and in 2018 she helped the Hong Kong Exchange set up its inaugural Precious Metals Seminar in LME Week (Asia) and chaired one of the panels; she has also been on panels in LME Week (Asia) and LME Week London in recent months.

She holds an honours degree in Law from the University of Cambridge.

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ROSS NORMAN

INDEPENDENT GOLD ANALYST

Ross Norman has over 30 years experience in precious metals trading and refining and is currently an independent gold analyst. 

Ross was formerly CEO and founder of Sharps Pixley Ltd, a physical bullion broker based on St James’s, London ; prior to that, he was a gold refiner with Johnson Matthey in Royston, before becoming a senior gold trader with Credit Suisse and NM Rothschild & Sons.

Ross has a strong track record in the LBMA's annual gold price forecasting competition over the last 20 years and maintains a high profile in bullion, being frequently quoted in the media. 

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JEFFREY RHODES

PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT

RAKGOLD

Jeffrey founded Rhodes Precious Metals Consultancy DMCC in 2013 after a successful career in the precious metals industry spanning four decades working across four continents for major bullion banks and financial institutions. Since 2013 he has successfully advised a number of high profile clients in the global precious metals markets and has been prominent in the development of the Dubai Multi Commodity Centre, having been a member of Dubai’s Gold Advisory Group since its inception in 2003 until the present day. Jeffrey is a past chairman of the Public Affairs Committee of the LBMA, having been the founding editor of its popular trade magazine The Alchemist. Jeffrey has been actively involved in the development of the RAKGOLD project at RAKBANK and is Chairman of the Advisory Committee at IPMR. He has had a regular slot on the Dubai Eye’s Business Breakfast Show for a number of years, appears frequently on financial TV, and participates in global precious metals forums as a speaker and moderator.

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HARISH PAWANI

HEAD OF PRECIOUS METALS

PEEKAY GROUP

Heading Peekay group of companies based in Dubai, UAE, primarily dealing in precious metals.
Have been in the industry for over 4 decades.
Member of COMEX, DGCX & SGX.

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CHANDRAPRAKASH D SIROYA

VICE CHAIRMAN

DUBAI GOLD & JEWELLERY GROUP

Chandraprakash D Siroya, also known as Chandu Siroya in business circles, is a Commerce graduate and hails from Rajasthan in India. He is the Managing Director of Siroya Jewellers LLC, one of Dubai’s dynamic companies. He has vast experience in the manufacture, wholesale and retail of jewellery. Siroya is the recipient of the Award of Highest Importer of Gold Jewellery from India into the Middle East for 2019 and has been the highest importer of Indian made jewellery for 12 years. Siroya Jewellers have also been awarded the Guinness World record for the manufacture of the Worlds Longest Handmade Gold Chain measuring 5.52 kilometres for the Dubai Gold & Jewellery Group during the Dubai Shopping Festival 2015.

Mr Siroya is the current Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dubai Gold & Jewellery Group. He has been a very active member of the board since its inception 26 years ago. Mr Siroya is also a member of the Dubai Gold Advisory group at DMCC and has been a speaker at various Gold conferences. He is actively involved within the Jain Community of Dubai and is the President of Jain International Trade Organisation Dubai.

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GERHARD SCHUBERT

CEO

SCHUBERT COMMODITIES CONSULTANCY DMCC

Gerhard Schubert is the founder of Schubert Commodities Consultancy MCC. His advisory services have been and are leading to assignments within the precious metals community, especially Gold refineries, Gold wholesale companies, Retail corporates as well as Government institutions and Central Banks. Gerhard was very strongly involved in the Gold sales of France and Switzerland and has advised many other Central Banks.

Furthermore, Gerhard holds lectures about sustainable sourcing including the relevant OECD guidelines, Frank-Dodd laws, DMCC rules etc. to many gold traders incl. Financial Institutions in the UAE.

Gerhard Schubert was the Head of Gold and Commodities at Arab Banking Corporation (ABC Bank) in Bahrain, before returning in March 2015 to Dubai.

Emirates NBD, in Dubai, was his first posting in the Middle East, where he led the bank’s global mandate in this key sector until March 2014.

Prior to this, Schubert was with Fortis Nederland, now ABN AMRO Nederland, as Global Head of Precious Metals. He joined Fortis Nederland following a brief stint at INTL Commodities, where he served as Head of Precious Metals London & New York. Previous to that role, he held the post of Deputy Head of Base and Precious Metals with Fortis Bank Belgium.

Schubert’s career in the Precious Metals markets spans exactly forty years and began as a trader at Bremer Landesbank in Bremen. He went then on to work as a precious metals trader for renowned global institutions such as DG-Bank, Shearson Lehman Brothers, DFS-Bullion, Bayerische Vereinsbank and Credit Lyonnais Rouse. Senior management posts followed in Mitsui & Co. and WestLB.

He has served on the Board of ABN AMRO Markets, UK, and was a Member of the Management Committee of the London Bullion Market Association and the London Platinum and Palladium Market. Schubert is a regular speaker on precious metals at industry conferences in the UAE, India, Bloomberg Television, as well as on Dubai TV ONE. Gerhard has served since 2011 on various committees of the DMCC in the DGAG (Dubai Gold Advisory Group), as well as in the Independent Governance Committee of the DMCC. The current clientele of Schubert Commodities Consultancy DMCC is made up of Precious Metals refineries, Trading companies, Financial Institutions and NGO’s.

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AJAY MATHUR

HEAD OF PRECIOUS METALS

DMCC

Moderator

To successfully lead the precious metals business at DMCC, the world’s number one Free Zone for commodities trade and enterprise, requires a commodities expert that goes way beyond the logistics and supply chain ‘know-how’ to give the organisation agility to maintain its competitive edge - today, tomorrow and long into the future.

Meet Ajay Mathur, who brings with him over 25 years of international banking experience from Standard Chartered, ScotiaMocatta, HSBC and Royal Bank of Canada - primarily as a commercial banker with specialisation in commodities and a forte in setting up new business from scratch.

With extensive experience in Canada, Middle East and India, Ajay joined the DMCC team in 2017 and is instrumental in driving DMCC’s strategy for precious metals to the next level by drawing upon his commodities trade and banking experience. He was also a voluntary member of DMCC’s Dubai Gold Advisory Group and its Physical sub-committee from 2004 – 2012. Today, Ajay’s core objective is to cement DMCC’s position as the global gateway for commodities trade and enterprise.

Drawing upon DMCC’s world-class trade infrastructure from its DMCC Free Zone, home to over 15,000 companies; through to its trade facilitation for key commodities sectors such as precious metals, its financial services platforms including the Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange; and its unique platforms like DMCC Tradeflow that bring trade finance solutions to market; Ajay ensures the organisation develops the appropriate infrastructure the trade needs to succeed, as well as connecting market participants from all over the world through global events such as DMCC’s annual global Dubai Precious Metals Conference.

Ajay brings a wealth of industry expertise and financial nous with him that continues to bring DMCC and his team to new heights. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Economics from University of Delhi, India.

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