The AMN First Vice President Raymond Kudzawu-D’Pherdd is a senior exploration geologist who has consciously leveraged on his knowledge in finance to specialize in business development in the natural resource space.
He has 20 years of experience in mineral exploration and mining, and in capacity building in the extractive industry. He has been engaged in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Nigeria on numerous extractive industry projects and in various managerial, administrative and coordinating capacities with oversight responsibilities on projects with budgets as much as $3M.
Raymond played a key role in a Frederich Ebert Stiftung sponsored Foreign Policy Analysis on Ghana’s Emerging Oil Economy in 2010. He was very instrumental in the early days of the IIED Country Dialogue on Artisanal Small-Scale Mining in Ghana. Raymond also played a cardinal role in UNDP’s project in Reviewing the Alignment between the Africa Mining Vision (AMV) and Ghana’s Policy and Legal Frameworks for Solid Minerals and Oil and Gas. He is the first awardee of the 2016 MEfDA Alumni Regional Study Tours for Africa award (MEfDA=Minerals and Energy for Development Alliance, Australia), whence he chose to study the small-scale mining sector in Ethiopia and led an intra- sectorial team of industry expert from Ghana on the project. Raymond is also a 2016 conferee of the Emerging Leaders in African Mining Award, Diemersfontein, South Africa.
While he is a Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists, he is also a member of the following professional bodies: Ghana Institution of Geoscientists, the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the Geological Society of America, and the Philadelphia Geological Society. He was the General Secretary of the Accra Mining Network and the Ghana Institution of Geoscientists and was the editor of their respective Newsletters.
He holds a BSc in Geology and an MSc in Petroleum Geoscience, both from the University of Ghana, Legon. He also holds an MSc in Industrial Finance and Investment from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi. He is also an Australian Awards Scholar of Local, Economic and Social Development in the Extractives from the University of Queensland, and of Minerals and Energy Economics from the Australian National University and the University of Pretoria (South Africa). He also holds a certificate in Hydrothermal Ore Deposits from University of Ottawa (Canada).
Above and beyond, Raymond can be exceptionally innovative and extraordinarily resourceful. He is always able to find easier and better ways of doing things. He also has a few publications to his credit; his current work is in developing a Generalized Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity model for the inherent volatility of exchange rates and the price of gold on the global market: an uncommon blend of geoscience and finance. He is also passionate about using prosocial concepts and gender mainstreaming in communal projects to forestall conflicts in mining communities.
Having worked with RSG, Corstor, Coffey International, Sahara Natural Resources, Goldfields, Gold Empire Resources Ltd (GERL), and Geogamut, Raymond now moonlights in consulting, and avails his unique versatility in the extractive industry to support and promote a culture of innovation in the generation of superior project ideas. He is currently the Head of Department of Industry Value Addition and Beneficiation, ASM, Women and Youth and Blue Economy at Minerals Africa Development Institution (MADI). headquartered in Kampala, Uganda.
He is also the consulting geologist for the Government of Ghana’s project in developing the Opon Mansi Iron Ore discovery in the Western Region of Ghana under the Ghana Integrated Iron and Still Development Corporation (GIISDEC) with NEMAS Consult.
He is also an Assistant Lecturer of Sustainable Mining at the School of Geoscience, University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), Sunyani-Ghana.
A FEW MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATIONS
- Gold Deposits of the Birimian and Tarkwaian in Ghana, 2018 SEG GUIDEBOOK SERIES Volume 57, with Lipson, et al.
- The Bank of Ghana and MenzGold Muddle, 2018, GRAPHIC CORPORATION, GHANA
- MenzGold muddle: Lawmakers and regulators failed us, 2019, GHANAWEB Online
- Best AISC Managed Gold Mines In Ghana: Akyem, Asanko & Iduapriem, 2020, ACCRA MINING NETWORK
- Russia And China Battle For Namdini In Ghana, 2020, ACCRA MINING NETWORK
- Testing the Blockchain Technology in Ghana, 2017, GhIG Newsletter Vol.1.3Q4 with Ontoyin, J.Z. ISSN 2550-3456
- Small Scale Mining In Ethiopia And In Ghana: A Comparative Analysis, 2018. The Mining Spectrum-An AMN Bulletin, ISSN 2616-1532
- Mineral Sector Status of Ghana – a Socio-historic Anthology I, 2020, Madi African Times Newsletter, Vol 3, ISSN 2704-94660
- Mineral Sector Status of Ghana – a Socio-historic Anthology II, 2020, Madi African Times Newsletter, Vol 4, ISSN 2704-94660
- Managing the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining – Integrating ASM in Regional and Global Minerals Value and Supply Chain- What policies do we need? 2020 MADI E-Conference Presentation with this food for thought at the end; Shouldn’t the African Union be directly benefiting from every ounce of mineral extracted on the continent, and redirected that to developing the continent? See last page.
MISCELLANEOUS ENGAGEMENTS
- GHANA – SEG Foundation Student Field Trip 17
- CANADA, Oshawa – Au-LINIAG Inc. Technical Director
- GHANA -Wassa-Simpa Health Centre Gets Potable Water
- GHANA – Part of a biannual dialogue with the Ghana Minerals’ Commission
- AUSTRALIA – Lithgow mines attract African visitors
- GHANA – Donating to flood victims
- GHANA – Training Small Scale Miners on Sustainable Mining
- GHANA – Introducing Prospective Miners To Best Practices
- NIGERIA – Profile at TMG
- UGANDA – Profile at MADI
- AUSTRALIA AID – Assists community with potable water