About Us

Gerard Barron is on a mission to help wean humanity off fossil fuels and transition to a circular resource economy. He is a seasoned entrepreneur with a track record of building global companies in battery technology, media and future-oriented resource development both as a chief executive and strategic investor. He became involved in the early strategic development and financing of DeepGreen during its formation in 2011 and stepped into the role of Chairman & CEO in 2017.

Gerard is leading DeepGreen’s three-part strategy to first inject a sufficient supply of four virgin metals (Ni, Mn, Co, Cu) into the system to enable the green transition, then track and recycle the four metals that DeepGreen injects, and ultimately work through the rest of the periodic table to circularize the remaining metals. If DeepGreen succeeds, mining virgin ores—whether in land or in the ocean—will become a marginal human activity as we meet most of our metal needs by recycling a shared common stock of metals.

Dr. Stone is an ocean scientist and explorer with over 10,000 dives throughout Earth’s ocean down to 18,000 feet using submarines, SCUBA, underwater habitats and robotics. Greg is also widely known as a global thought leader who finds ways for humanity and the ocean to co-exist and support each other in the modern world. He was a catalysts at the genesis of the Ocean Health Index and specializes in sustainable fishing, aquaculture, climate adaptation and seamount ecology. Greg’s ability to communicate complex science is illustrated by his compelling TED and Davos talks, and his appearances in documentaries for Discovery and National Geographic. He’s authored hundreds of publications including for Nature, National Geographic, and four books, one a National Outdoor Book Award winner. Greg’s numerous accolades and professional associations include the Explorers Club, Pew Fellowship for Marine Conservation, National Geographic Hero, the Boston Sea Rover’s Diver of the year, Order of Kiribati Medal, the U.S National Science Foundation/Navy Antarctic Service medal, and a NOGI from National Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences. Greg is also Senior Science Advisor to the Special Envoy for Ocean and the World Economic Forum Ocean Program, Previously, he was Chief Scientist for Conservation International and head of their Global Ocean Program. He currently calls Los Angeles his home and looks out at his beloved Pacific Ocean.

Mr. Jonas Munch Agerskov is a strategic leader within the offshore industry. He joined A. P. Møller – Maersk A/S in 2012 where he has held positions within business development, finance, strategy and is currently the Chief Strategy Officer at Maersk Supply Service A/S. He plays a key role in driving Maersk Supply Service forward towards its vision of actively taking part in solving the energy challenges of tomorrow through integrated solutions for the offshore industry. Further, he serves on the Board of Directors of Maersk Decom A/S, a Joint Venture between Maersk Supply Service A/S and Maersk Drilling. Maersk Decom A/S is a company that is focused on providing integrated solutions for the decommissioning of Oil and Gas installations. He is an Officer in the Danish Army and holds a Masters in Economics from the University of Copenhagen.

Andrei serves as CEO of the Karkar family office: ERAS Holdings in San Francisco, with its origins in Karkar Electronics founded in 1959—a Silicon Valley telecommunications company which developed, engineered, and manufactured state-of-the-art voice and data communications infrastructure. Karkar Electronics equipment was adopted as standard by the Department of Defense and NATO, and became a main supplier to companies such as Raytheon, AT&T, and MCI. Previously at UBS and Bank of America, Andrei invests globally in public and private markets focusing on disruptive innovation across industries and brings enhanced strategic and geopolitical thought to the leadership team. With extensive land holdings in Northern California, Andrei is active in redwood timberland conservation, revitalization, and enhancing protection and habitat for endangered species. Andrei graduated from Georgetown University and is active in various think tanks and in supporting the arts, sciences and philanthropy.

Paul Matysek is a proven company builder with over 30 years of experience in the mining industry, having sold five companies in the past decade creating shareholder value in excess of $2.065 billion. He built Energy Metals Corporation which sold to Uranium One in 2007 for $1.8 billion, Potash One which sold to K+S Ag for $434 million in 2011, Lithium One which merged with Galaxy Resources for $112 million in 2012 and sold Goldrock Mines Corp to Fortuna Silver Mines for $178 million in July 2016. Most recently Mr. Matysek was the Executive Chairman of Lithium X Energy Corp, a lithium resource company, which raised approximately $50 million, and within 2.5 years, was sold to an international company for $265 million in March 2018.

Brian Paes-Braga is Principal, Head of Merchant Banking at SAF Group, a leading structured credit and merchant banking group which builds, invests, finances and advises high growth companies as well as provides flexible and long-term capital solutions to public and private corporations while providing stable returns for investors through its structured credit arm. He sits on the Board of Directors of DeepGreen Metals and Thunderbird Entertainment. Brian was Founder and CEO of Lithium X Energy Corp., a lithium resource company, which raised approximately $53 million and, within 2.5 years, was sold to an international company for $265 million in March 2018. Brian is an Advisory Council member of the International Crisis Group and is proud to support several charities and research groups through his private family foundation, Quiet Cove Foundation, which seeks to support innovative solutions to large scale social issues. Brian is currently attending the Owners, Presidents and Management (OPM) program at Harvard Business School.

Gerard Barron is on a mission to help wean humanity off fossil fuels and transition to a circular resource economy. He is a seasoned entrepreneur with a track record of building global companies in battery technology, media and future-oriented resource development both as a chief executive and strategic investor. He became involved in the early strategic development and financing of DeepGreen during its formation in 2011 and stepped into the role of Chairman & CEO in 2017.

Gerard is leading DeepGreen’s three-part strategy to first inject a sufficient supply of four virgin metals (Ni, Mn, Co, Cu) into the system to enable the green transition, then track and recycle the four metals that DeepGreen injects, and ultimately work through the rest of the periodic table to circularize the remaining metals. If DeepGreen succeeds, mining virgin ores—whether in land or in the ocean—will become a marginal human activity as we meet most of our metal needs by recycling a shared common stock of metals.

Dr. Stone is an ocean scientist and explorer with over 10,000 dives throughout Earth’s ocean down to 18,000 feet using submarines, SCUBA, underwater habitats and robotics. Greg is widely known as a global thought leader who finds ways for humanity and the ocean to co-exist and support each other in the modern world. He was a catalyst at the genesis of the Ocean Health Index and specializes in sustainable fishing, aquaculture, climate adaptation and seamount ecology. Greg’s ability to communicate complex science is illustrated by his compelling TED and Davos talks, and his appearances in documentaries for Discovery and National Geographic. Greg’s numerous accolades and professional associations include the Explorers Club, Pew Fellowship for Marine Conservation, National Geographic Hero, Order of Kiribati Medal, and the U.S National Science Foundation/Navy Antarctic Service medal. In 2008, The Boston Globe named him “Bostonian of the Year”. Previously, Greg was Senior Science Advisor to the Special Envoy for Ocean and the World Economic Forum Ocean Program, and served as Chief Scientist for Conservation International and head of their Global Ocean Program. He currently calls Los Angeles his home and looks out at his beloved Pacific Ocean.

Anthony O’Sullivan has over 30 years mining experience with a track record of delivering innovative solutions across multiple continents both in the terrestrial and marine environments. He is an innovator in mining, who is part of DeepGreen because of his proven commitment to sustainable and ethical mining. As Chief Operating Officer of Nautilus he led exploration, engineering and design, project development, permitting and product marketing culminating in the declaration of 43-101 compliant resources, grant of the environmental permit and mining lease from the Government of Papua New Guinea, ore sales agreement with one of China’s leading copper producers Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group and the completion of project design and commencement of project construction. He was previously part of the BHP Billiton Global Exploration Leadership Team with responsibility for the company’s iron ore, bauxite, coal and non-porphyry base metal exploration portfolios. He is the named co-inventor on 5 subsea mining patents.

Erika Ilves is an entrepreneur and seasoned strategy lead dedicated to creating the systems and conditions required to secure a safe future for the human species. She was co-founder of Offworld, an industrial robotics company, where she led a team of machine learning engineers to develop teachable mining robots, and was also co-founder of Shackleton Energy, where she developed an international public-private consortium to create technologies to extract water ice from the moon in order to fuel deep space missions from low Earth orbit, drastically reducing the costs of such missions. Erika’s 15 years of strategy consulting experience started with McKinsey & Company, where she served global and emerging markets financial institutions on strategy, performance and operational transformations; and later advised GCC governments and investors on transitioning to a green economy. Previously, Erika was an executive at videoconferencing technology firm TANDBERG (acquired by Cisco), where she was responsible for developing leadership and sales capability for the firm’s global sales force. At DeepGreen, Erika is working to build the world’s first vertically integrated clean energy ecosystem by establishing alliances with like-minded leaders in offshore, electric vehicles and renewable energy technology, as well as developing our transparent provenance strategy to enable DeepGreen to establish Clean Metals as a new purchasing category. She is fluent in English, Estonian, Russian and proficient in Danish and French.

Michael has a PhD from the University of Texas and completed post-doctoral studies at Queen Mary University in London. He has 25+ years of experience in the field of environmental management and impact assessment with a focus on the mining and renewable energy sectors. With certifications as an Environmental Practitioner and Environmental Impact Assessor from the Environmental Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ), he has successfully delivered highly complex Environmental Impact Assessments for large infrastructure projects in all corners of the globe. Michael is also an accomplished marine biologist, he led a team to map marine turtle nesting and migration patterns on the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula as part of a Darwin Initiative for the Conservation of Species project and has conducted marine conservation programs and baseline studies in Egypt, Indonesia, Vanuatu and Australia.

Dr. Smith holds a Bachelor of Science in microbiology (University of Florida), Master of Science in environmental science (University of Florida) and a Ph.D. in earth system science (Stanford University). During his fifteen years as an environmental scientist and researcher, he has conducted high impact research throughout the marine environment, from the activity and diversity of biological communities in marine sediments to the chemical and biological properties of deep ocean waters. These efforts have proven highly productive, as evidenced by more than $5 million in funding awards and 22 peer-reviewed publications – many of which are very well cited. On top of his academic career, he has gained substantial experience conducting environmental baseline surveys in offshore environments – the results of which have consistently met regulatory approval.

Jon Machin has 30 years experience at the forefront of oilfield engineering and technology and has worked extensively in the deep-water sector. He has held senior management positions in the technical and commercial departments within market leading organizations Fugro, Technip and Schlumberger. He was a co-founder of deep-water geotechnical engineers UTEC Geomarine. Mr Machin has a remarkable track record of design and build of numerous Remote Operated Vehicles (ROV’s) and ‘extreme’ machines engaging the seafloor, including trenchers for pipelines and cable laying and deep-water dredgers. With DeepGreen Resources Director David Heydon, he jointly conceived the ROVdrill to overcome limitations of conventional drill ships in the marine minerals industry. Mr Machin holds a masters degree in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford. He is a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, is accredited with over 20 published peer-reviewed papers and lectures widely on deep-water engineering. He holds at least 6 patents.

Dr. Jeffrey Donald has over 20 years of international experience in the mining & metallurgy business. Dr. Donald is a specialist in the interface between business strategy, capital project scoping, technology and operational excellence. He is an expert at managing the business case development of complex strategic projects in challenging international environments with multiple stakeholder interests. Dr. Donald has a broad knowledge of all aspects of the mining industry; nickel in particular, with a basis in metallurgy and process engineering. Dr. Donald has extensive project development experience, having managed portfolios of complex, strategic projects including greenfield developments, major expansions, environmental improvement & compliance, commercialization of novel technologies and operations improvement programs during his tenures at Hatch, Inco, Vale, PT Vale Indonesia and SNC Lavalin. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and degrees from Queen’s University at Kingston, ON.

Corey is an experienced community and social performance manager with experience working in the South Pacific and in Canada’s North. Corey began his career working in government before transitioning to the mining industry where he worked with Rio Tinto leading their community relations team at the Diavik Diamond Mine. While at Diavik, Corey developed sector leading practices for Indigenous business development and renegotiated modern industry leading benefit agreements. Outside of work, Corey enjoys spending time with family in the mountains and sits on the Squamish Waldorf School Board.

With a degree in Law (Hons) and Business Management from the University of Queensland, Australia, Robert Heydon has played an important role in pioneering 21st century private sector mineral exploration in the International Seabed Area. He has been involved in the deep sea mining industry for over a decade, including assisting to progress the development of national and international legal frameworks regulating seafloor mining. Along with overseeing successful seafloor mineral exploration and metallurgical processing programmes, Mr. Heydon has pioneered deep sea mineral ventures with Pacific Island countries. Previously, he worked for Nautilus Minerals Inc., and was a member of the UNEP/GRID-Arendal Steering Committee for the Pacific Marine Minerals and Deep Sea Mining Assessment.

Robert Milbourne is an international corporate attorney with 20 years of experience in the global mining and minerals, infrastructure and energy sectors. Rob served as in-house and General Counsel for global mining firm Vale in Australia, and as an equity partner at two of the world’s leading law firms where he specialized in cross-border mining transactions. He has worked in most commodities and major mining jurisdictions and has closed transactions in over 30 countries. Rob has advised governments, financial institutions, investors and mining firms in all stages of mining projects from early exploration to development, operations and closure. He is also an adjunct professor of law at the University of Queensland, and regularly speaks on global trends in mining and natural resources law and policy. Rob is the founder of Mining Standards International, which addresses transparency, accountability, law and policy in the mining sector. He has an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in Asian Studies and a Juris Doctorate from Duke Law School.

Cary Krosinsky is Sustainability Advisor to DeepGreen and a globally respected author, teacher and senior advisor on sustainable finance. His teaching includes popular classes on sustainable investing at Brown, NYU and at Yale, where he teaches at the Yale School of Management and acts as a Faculty Advisory Committee member on Energy Studies at Yale College. He is also Co-Founder and Director of the Carbon Tracker Initiative and Real Impact Tracker, member of the NY State Common Decarbonization Advisory Panel appointed by Governor Cuomo and Comptroller DiNapoli in 2018, and a contributor to the recent China-UK Green Finance Taskforce report titled Delivering a Greener Tomorrow. Among other recent papers, in 2015 Cary published a Framework for Asset Owner Strategy on Climate Change.

Daniel Schmachtenberger’s central interest is comprehensive civilization (re)design: developing adequate capacities for collective values generation, sense-making, and choice-making, in service to coordinated conscious sustainable evolution…towards a world commensurate with our higher ideals and potentials.

Dan has over 15 years of experience in international development, renewable energy and media ventures. He founded Planetwize Strategies in 2006 and has worked with clients around the world to develop brands, strategy and programs for making, measuring and communicating impact. He was VP of Impact and Communications at solar mini-grid pioneer Powerhive, in East Africa, where he leveraged communications and media to increase uptake of solutions to the global energy access challenge. Dan served as Communications Officer for The Christensen Fund where he led the foundation’s strategic communications initiatives in support of Indigenous communities around the world, and was previously the VP of Sustainability for Better Energy Systems where he developed strategy, marketing and social entrepreneurial applications in East Africa with Solio, one of the world’s first commercial micro-solar technologies. Dan received his Masters degree in environment and development from the London School of Economics and is an accomplished filmmaker and musician.

Toby Buckley is a robotics and control engineer who has overseen projects taking robots around the globe and into outer space. He previously was senior robotics and controls engineer for innovative robotics startup OffWorld Inc., leading the software and controls team in development of robotic systems. Toby earned a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University, and completed internships at Boeing, where he simulated and analyzed space-launch system vehicle trajectories; at Stanford’s Autonomous Systems Lab, where he helped implement decision-making algorithms for autonomous cars; and at The SpaceShip Company, where he programmed software for the suborbital vehicle SpaceShipTwo.

Tom is an experienced trader of commodities and equities and has worked at firms that include Paul Morgan & Co, Barclays Bank and UK stockbroker Cazenove, where he ran the Australian Sales Desk into Asia. At the turn of the century Tom focused on the Australian stock market with Tolhurst, where he ran their Institutional Desk. During this time Tom extended his responsibilities beyond sales and trading in to corporate services with a focus on the resources sector. He began working with Nautilus Minerals to raise the initial funds for the company’s IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Tom has also worked privately as a corporate advisor to select companies with big ideas. He believes in DeepGreen’s mission to move humanity toward carbon-free energy and applies his efforts and experience to the areas of finance, investor relations and business development

Mick Eddy has 15 years of experience building and investing in disruptive businesses. After nine years developing augmented reality company Osterhout Group, he became an active investor and advisor in technology companies and has raised $100 million in venture and debt funding with an emphasis on the mobile technology sector. Mick’s direct investments include JUUL/PAX, SpaceX, Flexport, Bakkt, Lime Bike, Figure/Provenience and Eight Sleep. He also serves as a mentor at Orange Fab, connecting startups to corporations for strategic investment and partnership opportunities. Mick is driven by DeepGreen’s potential to disrupt the minerals sector and to speed the transition to a clean energy future. He studied at University of Southern California and London School of Economics and is an avid skier, diver, traveler and foodie. He currently lives in San Francisco.

William Li is an experienced senior manager and entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience working between Australia and China in both the private and public sectors. He has been active in the minerals and mining industry since 2002, developing product off-take agreements; project development strategy and financing; engineering and research development and procurement of a number of global commodities. William has been an active participant in the evolution of deep sea mining over the last eight years, playing a key role on a team that initiated one of the world’s first deep sea minerals offtake agreements in a multi-year, international negotiation. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from Nankai University, China, an MBA from QUT, Australia and has completed course work toward a certificate of extractive metallurgy. He currently lives in Brisbane, Australia.