Plenary speakers
Plenary speakers
Amparo Cornejo is Chief Sustainability Officer at Teck Resources and a recognized leader in the global mining industry. She leads Teck’s global sustainability strategy and is known for advancing collaborative approaches with local communities and promoting gender equity, including the Originarias program in partnership with UN Women. She was appointed Global Ambassador for International Women in Mining Day and named Executive of the Year 2024 by EY Chile and El Mercurio, as well as recognized by The Northern Miner.
She serves on UNICEF’s Business Advisory Council, sits on the Executive Committee of Chile’s Mining Council, and is a board member of the Chile–Canada Chamber of Commerce. In 2025, she was recognized in Chile’s Cadem “Marcas Ciudadanas” ranking for her societal impact and positive public leadership.
Evangelina Arias Vargas de Sologuren is an architect, a graduate of the National University of Engineering (UNI), and a prominent leader in Peru’s mining and business sectors. She currently holds key positions, including Executive Chair of the Board of Directors of Compañía Minera Poderosa, and serves on the boards of various mining, business, and academic organizations, both nationally and internationally. Her career is marked by extensive participation on boards of directors, advisory committees, and associations related to mining, private enterprise, academia, and the promotion of integrity and women’s leadership, establishing her as an influential figure in fostering collaboration between business, government, and civil society.
Throughout her career, she has held significant leadership roles, including the presidency of the National Society of Mining, Petroleum, and Energy (SNMPE), the Inter-American Mining Society (SIM), and various high-level mining congresses and events such as PERUMIN and CONAMIN. Her contributions have been widely recognized through national and international awards, including her inclusion in Forbes’ list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Peru (2025), the WIM100 recognition from Women in Mining UK, and an honorary doctorate from the National University of Engineering (UNI). These distinctions reflect her sustained impact on the development of the mining sector and on the promotion of female and entrepreneurial leadership in Peru and the region.
| He has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Compañía de Minas Buenaventura since 2011, having worked at the company since 1977. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and a Master of Business Administration from Henley Business School, University of Reading, United Kingdom. He completed the Management Development Program at Harvard Business School, United States, and the Advanced Management Program at Templeton College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. He served as Dean of the Lima Departmental Council of the College of Engineers of Peru for the 2022–2024 term. He is a professor of the Management of Mining Companies course at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and of the Managerial Strategy course in the Master’s Program in Mining Management at the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería. He actively participates in both national and international academic circles. |
Mark Cutifani CBE is a globally respected mining executive with over 48 years of experience across six continents, 20 countries, and more than 30 minerals and metals. Trained as a mining engineer, he is best known for his transformational leadership as Chief Executive of Anglo American (2013–2022).
During this period, he led a major restructuring that delivered industry-leading results, including an average annual shareholder return of 22%, a doubling of productivity, and a 40% reduction in real unit costs, while repositioning the company as a leader in sustainability and innovation.
Previously, he served as CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, successfully turning around the business, and held senior executive roles at Vale, Rio Tinto, and other major mining groups. A former President of the International Council on Mining and Metals and the South African Chamber of Mines, he has received numerous global honors for leadership, sustainability, and innovation, including a CBE in 2024 for contributions to global mining investment.
He currently serves as a Non-Executive Director of TotalEnergies, chairs and advises several global initiatives, and remains actively involved in ethical, sustainable, and socially responsible business leadership.
Sonia Scarselli joined Endeavour in January 2025 as Executive Vice President, Exploration.
Prior to joining Endeavour, she led BHP’s Metals Exploration division and the company’s innovative accelerator program, BHP Xplor, with a focus on developing transformative and collaborative approaches to expand future growth opportunities. She was appointed Vice President of BHP Xplor in June 2022, and in September 2023 her role was expanded to include leadership of BHP’s Exploration organisation.
Sonia joined BHP in 2012 and held several senior leadership roles within BHP Petroleum, including Vice President of Exploration and Appraisal, Head of Algeria, and Exploration Manager for Trinidad and Tobago. As part of the BHP Xplor team, she received the 2024 AME Murray Pezim Award in recognition of the program’s success in pioneering innovative approaches to financing and supporting mineral exploration. She was also named one of the 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining in 2024.
Sonia began her career at ExxonMobil UK and currently serves as an advisor to Deep Energy Capital LLP, CEOs Against Cancer Chapter, and the AAPG Advisory Council.
Rohitesh “Ro” Dhawan is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM). He leads the Council of 26 CEOs of the world’s largest mining & metals companies in voluntary leadership actions that raise the standards of responsible mining.
Under his leadership, ICMM has undertaken landmark commitments and action on critical sustainable development issues, including the first industry-wide commitment to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions, the first collective commitment of any sector on nature positive, pioneering actions on diversity, equity and inclusion, and significant steps towards transparency of the industry’s contribution and performance, including on tax and contract disclosure.
Ro is a Fellow and faculty member of the Africa Leadership Initiative and a Raisina fellow at the Asian Forum on Global Governance. He serves on the Advisory Boards of the Columbia Centre for Sustainable Investment, Concordia, and Resolve. He has served on the UK Government’s Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions (PACT) Programme and was named one of South Africa’s climate change leaders for his work with the country’s mining sector.
Ro hold a Master’s in Environmental Change & Management from the University of Oxford in the UK and an undergraduate degree in Economics from Rhodes University in South Africa.
Beau Lotto is a renowned neuroscientist, international keynote speaker, and professor, globally recognized for his work on how we perceive the world and how perception shapes creativity, innovation, and decision-making.
He is the founder and CEO of two companies: Lab of Misfits, the world’s first neurodesign studio, and Ripple, a company that holds multiple patents in Augmented Reality (AR) technologies.
In academia, he served as a professor at University College London for more than 20 years. He is currently a professor at the University of London and a visiting scholar at New York University (NYU).
He has been a TED main-stage speaker three times, with his talks accumulating more than 10 million views. He has also delivered keynote presentations for leading global companies such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Universal, among others.
His presentations are visually striking, highly interactive, and accessible, inspiring global audiences to reframe challenges and opportunities by seeing them from new perspectives.
The author of “Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently”
A lawyer graduated from the Catholic University of Santa María – Arequipa, specializing in Mining, Environmental, Administrative, Corporate, Contract and Commercial Law; project financing and permits. She has worked at Sociedad Minera Cerro Verde S.A.A. since 1997, holding several important positions.
In April 2012, she assumed the position of Vice President of Corporate Affairs and continues to be responsible for the Legal, Government Relations, Public and Community Relations, Social Planning, and Energy areas.
Currently, she also serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors of Sociedad Minera Cerro Verde S.A.A., Director of the Cerro Verde Association, responsible for managing the company’s voluntary contributions, and President of the National Society of Mining, Petroleum and Energy (2025-2026).
Member of the Water Pact, Past-President of the Board of Directors of the Peruvian Foreign Trade Society COMEXPERÚ 2022-2024. Member of ABAC and Chair of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) 2024. Director of the Sustainable Peru Association 2021-2025. Director of AMCHAM. Co-Chair of the APEC Business Advisory Council 2025.
Flavia Tata Nardini is Co-founder and CEO of Fleet Space Technologies, one of Australia’s most exciting startups. As a real-life rocket scientist and former propulsion test engineer at the European Space Agency, Flavia holds two patents and has contributed to a broad range of innovative space projects. Along with her team, she is working hard towards launching a constellation of small satellites to enable high-value, real-time applications in industries such as mining, exploration, and defence.
Flavia’s recent achievements include her role as Board of Director at Austmine, Mission Chair of the 7Sisters Moon Mission, Chair of the Australian Space Agency Space Industry Leaders Forum, Vice Chair of AmCham SA Council of Governors, and Adjunct Professor of UniSA. She also recently graduated from the AICD Corporate Program. A strong advocate for women in STEM, Flavia regularly speaks at events and empowers the next generation of leaders.
Bent Flyvbjerg is Professor Emeritus at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and at the IT University of Copenhagen. He is an economic geographer by training.
He is co-author, together with Dan Gardner, of the book How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project (2023). The book examines why most large projects fail and proposes practical principles to successfully deliver large-scale initiatives with reduced uncertainty.
He is internationally recognized as “the world’s leading expert on megaprojects,” according to the global consulting firm KPMG.He is Chair and co-founder of Oxford Global Projects, an initiative dedicated to improving the planning and delivery of megaprojects worldwide. Throughout his career, he has advised governments including those of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Denmark, as well as Fortune 500 companies, multilateral banks, and international organizations such as the European Commission and the United Nations.
In recognition of his global impact, he was knighted by Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in 2002.
