John Sykes

John is a minerals industry strategist, economist, and geologist. He will start work at MinEx Consulting in early 2018.

He is currently finishing a PhD entitled “Using scenario planning to improve the integration of geological, technical, economic, environmental and socio-political factors in minerals exploration management and strategy” at the Centre for Exploration Targeting, The University of Western Australia.

John co-authors the Strictly Boardroom column on MiningNews.net, which was recently compiled into a book. He has published many peer-reviewed journal and conference papers and presentations about mineral industry economics, strategy, scenario planning, forecasting, history, policy, sustainability and competitiveness in the gold, copper, iron ore, tin, rare earths, critical and minor metals markets. Several of his papers have won awards for their quality.

He also teaches MBA courses on the ‘Strategic Management of Resource Companies’ and ‘Strategic Analysis and Consulting’ at the UWA Business School, on ‘Strategic Planning and Practice’ for the Australian Institute of Management (WA) and ‘Mineral Economics for Geologists’ for the Centre for Exploration Targeting. He previously taught ‘Mineral Economics and Policy’ for the International Mining for Development Centre and a course on the rare earth elements for Terrapinn Training.

Prior to studying his PhD, John founded Greenfields Resea