Brian G. Thurston, President, CEO and Director
During his two years at the helm, Brian Thurston has advanced Lion Energy Corp. through a change of business into the mineral exploration sector, raised over $32-million and acquired quality assets for the company. Mr. Thurston brings over 17 years of exploration management and operational experience in Canadian and Latin American projects. He was part of the initial geological exploration team that evaluated the current land holdings of Aurelian Resources Inc. in Ecuador in 2002, and held the position of Country Manager for Aurelian in 2004 and 2005. Aurelian was taken over by Kinross Gold Corp. in a transaction valued at $1.2 billion.
Arthur H. Kwan, Director
Mr. Kwan has over 13 years of capital markets experience encompassing investment banking, equity research, and private equity. He has approximately ten years of investment banking experience with Scotia Capital Inc., Peters & Co. Limited, and Thomas Weisel Partners Canada Inc. Mr. Kwan has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, initial public offerings, private placements, recapitalizations, and restructuring transactions, and has completed transactions with a value of over $10 billion. He is also currently the Vice President, Energy Investment Banking for PI Financial Corp. Mr. Kwan earned a B.BA (Finance) degree from Simon Fraser University, a M.BA (International Business) degree from Wilfrid Laurier University and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation from the CFA Institute. In addition, Mr. Kwan is a graduate of the European Summer School for Advance Management program held at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.
R. Gordon McKay, Director
Mr. McKay has more than 25 years experience in the oil and gas industry in both Western Canada and several of the major petroleum basins in Africa. Mr. McKay is currently President and CEO and Director of a private corporation focused on exploration and production in Alberta. Prior to this, he was COO of Gentry Resources Ltd., an oil and gas company with activities in Western Canada which sold for approximately $300 million and was VP Exploration of a public company focused on oil and gas activities in Africa. Mr. McKay began his career in mining exploration geophysics in West Africa and holds a B.E.S. degree from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario.
John R. Nelson, Director
Mr. Nelson has over 25 years of resource industry experience in geology and geophysics. He has served as an exploration geologist and project manager in numerous worldwide frontier areas, including the Central and East African rift basins for Mobil Oil Corp. He is the former president and director of Winslow Resources Inc., which subsequently completed a plan of arrangement with Dualex Energy International Ltd. He is currently a director of Liuyang Fireworks Ltd., Resource Hunter Capital, DualEx Energy and was a co-founder of Ceres Capital Corp., now Reliable Energy Inc. He holds a BSc and an MSc in geology from Michigan State University, and is a member of APEGGA and AAPG.