Our Team

Valesco Resources is an unlisted Australian Mining and Exploration company, its wholly owned Lao subsidiary company Dominion (Lao) Co. Ltd. holds a 100% interest in the Moungpha project in Sayabouly province. The company is owned and managed by Australian mining professionals with extensive experience in successful projects in Lao and neighbouring countries.

The company operates with minimal administrative overhead, supervised by a board of seasoned professionals.

Chairman - Ian Olifent

Ian is a seasoned businessman and investor with over 40 years’ experience in Australia and the Asia Pacific. He currently holds several leadership positions in various sectors, including agribusiness, mining, UXO clearance, and bio-diesel production. He is the chairman of AAG, a company that produces maize for the stock feed industry in Thailand and Cambodia using smart farming technology. He is also the chairman of XMC, a mining company in Lao PDR with a concession from the government for gold mining. He is the chairman of AUSLAO, a company that provides UXO clearance services throughout Lao PDR. He is also an executive director of Mutual Wide Corporation, a company that partners with the PNG government to process bio-diesel from palm oil waste.

Managing Director - David Meade

David has 30 years’ experience in mineral exploration, project management and project generation in South-East Asia, Australia, Africa and South America. He has business development experience in corporate governance, capital raising, joint venture negotiation and government liaison. David’s recent activities include Exploration Manager project generation and new business development for Chifeng Sepon 2021-2023 and Managing Director Naga Minerals since 2014. Over the past two decades he has worked on world class copper and gold projects that launched successful companies such as Equinox Minerals - Lumwana project in Zambia, Oxiana - Sepon project in Laos, Pan Australia - Phu Kham project in Laos and G-Resources - Martabe project in Indonesia.

Chief Operating Officer - Will Coverdale

Will is a mining engineer with over 19 years of experience in the mining and metals sector. He has worked on a variety of projects, including open pit and underground mining, project evaluation, due diligence, mergers and acquisitions, project planning, project development, technical and strategic consulting, and founding a mining related IT start-up. He has excellent project management and communication skills and has been based in Asia for over a decade, working principally out of Hong Kong. During this time, Will has provided technical and investment advisory services to various mining companies and mining investment funds. He has worked with companies such as but not limited to; Chifeng Jilong Gold, Thor Exploration, Leighton Asia, Barrick-Newmont (KCGM), Newcrest, Goldfields.

Valesco's Executive & Technical team boasts extensive expertise, with Professor Khin Zaw contributing over 40 years of academic and practical experience in ore deposits across Australasia and SE Asia, and Duncan Hackman bringing over 30 years of hands-on geological and resource evaluation work, including leadership roles in major mining projects throughout the region.

Technical Advisory – Professor Khin Zaw

Khin Zaw is Professor of Economic Geology at CODES ARC Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposits, University of Tasmania, Australia. He has over 40 years of experience working on genetic aspects of mineral deposits in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China and many parts of SE Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia), and has published a high number of papers relating to ore genesis and mineral exploration in the Australasian region. He works closely with his counterparts from the SE Asia region. He is currently leading an industry-CODES-funded project on the Ore Deposits of SE Asia.

Technical Advisory – Duncan Hackman 

Duncan is currently the Principal of the highly regarded resource and geological consultancy Hackman and Associates based in Australia.  Duncan is a resource, exploration and production geologist with over 30 years’ experience in the mining industry and has been involved in the exploration, evaluation and exploitation of precious metal, base metal, bulk commodity and industrial mineral deposits throughout Australia and S.E. Asia.  He has undertaken the responsibility for all technical aspects of resource delineation and evaluation work in defining resources for feasibility studies and has assumed the role of ‘Competent Person’ under the JORC Code and Canadian NI 43-101 for resource estimates of major developments as part of his role in these projects.  Duncan’s experience in Laos dates back to the 1990s with Rio Tinto exploration, he was later responsible for the initial resource estimates for Oxiana on the feasibility studies at Sepon and Prominent Hill