Board of Directors
Jeffrey York
Chairman of the Board
Jeffrey York brings to Stria Lithium decades of executive leadership heading two of Canada’s iconic retailers, first as the President and COO of Giant Tiger Stores, the once regional retail chain that grew into a national, billion-dollar company under his leadership. He went on to become CEO of Farm Boy Inc., leading the transformation of a local grocer into the hugely successful food chain acquired by Sobeys for $800 million in 2018. He remains a Partner at Farm Boy.
Mr. York is also co-founder and Chair of Focus Graphite, a company developing two Quebec sites holding some of the world’s highest grade graphite which, like lithium, is a critical battery component.
Mr. York has been an active member of the Young Presidents Organization executive network since 2002. A chartered accountant, Mr. York began his professional career with the accounting firm Ward Mallette after graduating from Princeton with a degree in Economics.
Dean Hanisch
Chief Executive Officer
Dean Hanisch is an entrepreneur with a successful 30-year record of assisting private and public companies in a broad range of industries, and at all stages of growth from seed and commercialization to operation and monetization. Mr. Hanisch has assisted a number of junior mining companies to enhance their market presence, and was instrumental in the growth and eventual sale of U.S.-based Paramount Gold and Silver Corp. Previously, Mr. Hanisch held a variety of senior executive positions in the IT industry, again assisting companies to grow, prosper and maximize shareholder return through acquisitions by public companies – for example, Titan Consulting Group acquired by Calian CTY.
Robin Dow
Director
Robin Dow HBA, MBA, FCSI, is currently CEO of Silver Eagle Mines Inc. In 1976, Mr. Dow began his career as a retail and institutional broker, and went on to become a senior executive of brokerage houses in Calgary, Alberta. In 1988, Mr. Dow began the Dow Group, leading to a series of successful public companies over the past 35 years.
Larry Segerstrom
Director
Mr. Segerstrom is a bilingual senior mining professional with more than 37 years of exploration, operations, and business experience. His past management positions include COO of Paramount Gold and Silver Corp in Mexico, and Manager of Geology of the Grasberg Mining District for Freeport-McMoRan in Indonesia. He has been involved in several discoveries, including leading the teams that discovered and developed new resources of more than 750,000 ounces of gold and 60 million ounces of silver with Paramount Gold & Silver (PZG), and new ore reserves totalling 3.4 billion pounds of copper and 3.6 million ounces of gold with Freeport.
Donald Birak
Director
Donald J. Birak is a senior geologist with over 45 years of experience in the minerals industry. Currently, he consults on mineral property evaluation, regulatory compliance and greenfields and brownfields exploration programs and has served on the board of several publicly traded companies and currently is a member of the Board of Directors of Silver Hammer Mining Corp. Previously, Mr. Birak was Senior Vice President of Exploration for Coeur Mining Inc. with responsibility for the design and guidance of all aspects of the company’s global exploration activities and also served as Vice President of Exploration for AngloGold Ashanti North America (formerly Independence Mining Co. Inc.) and Hudbay Minerals Inc. (formerly Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co. Ltd.). In 2000 he received the “Bill Dennis Prospector of the Year” award presented by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, along with his key exploration team members, in recognition of discovery of the 777 copper and zinc deposit and several others in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake Greenstone Belt of Manitoba, Canada.
Mr. Birak earned a Master of Science degree in Geology from Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He is a Senior Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) and is currently a member of the Budget and Investment committees of SEG. He is a Registered Member of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) and a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM).
Management Team
Dean Hanisch
Chief Executive Officer
Dean Hanisch is an entrepreneur with a successful 30-year record of assisting private and public companies in a broad range of industries, and at all stages of growth from seed and commercialization to operation and monetization. Mr. Hanisch has assisted a number of junior mining companies to enhance their market presence, and was instrumental in the growth and eventual sale of U.S.-based Paramount Gold and Silver Corp. Previously, Mr. Hanisch held a variety of senior executive positions in the IT industry, again assisting companies to grow, prosper and maximize shareholder return through acquisitions by public companies – for example, Titan Consulting Group acquired by Calian CTY.
Judith Mazvihwa-MacLean
Chief Financial Officer & Secretary
Judith Mazvihwa-MacLean is a geologist and accountant with more than 16 years of experience in mineral exploration, mining, management and corporate finance. She is also currently CFO of Focus Graphite.
Before joining Focus Graphite, Ms. Mazvihwa-MacLean was the CFO for Golden Harp Resources Ltd., Logan Resources Ltd., and Acme Resources Ltd (formerly, International KRL Resources Corp.). She also served as board member for both Logan Resources Ltd. and Acme Resources Ltd.
Ms. Mazvihwa-MacLean has a degree in geology, a Masters Degree in Environmental Change, and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA). She is accredited as a Certified Professional Accountant (CPA), and a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) by the Certified Management Accountants Society of British Columbia.
Marc-Andre Bernier, géo. (QC), P.Geo. (ON), M.Sc.
Senior Geoscientist, TJCM
Marc-Andre Bernier is the Senior Geoscientist at TJCM (Table jamésienne de Concertation Minière), a non-profit regional development organization founded in Chibougamau northern Quebec in 2001. The organization has been providing technical support services to Stria for its Pontax Lithium project since 2018. TJCM advises governments and communities on issues relating to the sustainable development of Eeyou Istchee James Bay Territory’s mining industry. TJCM also provides on-demand technical support and advisory services to junior mining companies with exploration and mineral resources appraisal phase projects in Québec.
Sara Loft
Special Advisor, Indigenous Relations
Sara Loft is the Founder of Tawi:ne Consulting, an Indigenous-owned and operated company specializing in Indigenous engagement and consultation, project management, policy/ governance and capacity development.