TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwire) -- 09/23/10 -- The Board of Directors of Virgin Metals Inc. (TSX VENTURE: VGM) are pleased to confirm the appointment of Chris Frostad as President & Chief Executive Officer, Janet O'Donnell as Chief Financial Officer and Darren Koningen as Vice President, Project Development.
'This is a very important year for the company', said Chris Frostad. 'We are in the process of completing the planning, reorganization, staffing, and financing necessary to deliver measurable value to shareholders. We will be executing on a precise and focused path over the next 12 months'.
Chris Frostad is also the President and CEO of Purepoint Uranium Group Inc., a TSX-V listed company that he co-founded in 2004. Prior to Purepoint, Mr. Frostad worked for one of Canada's leading venture capital funds where he acted as the CEO of numerous portfolio companies focusing on a variety of responsibilities, including mergers and acquisitions, sales strategy, product development and marketing.
Throughout his career, Mr. Frostad has been instrumental in the development and building of a variety of high growth, early stage, public and private companies. He began his career with the international accounting firm of Deloitte Haskins & Sells where he received his chartered accounting designation. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration, Honours, from Wilfrid Laurier University.
As Chief Financial Officer, Mrs. Janet O'Donnell brings over 25 years experience as an accounting professional. In addition to her duties at Virgin, Mrs. O'Donnell is also the Chief Financial Officer with a gold exploration and development company focused on a late stage exploration project in Ontario, Canada. Prior to this she was CFO of a gold producer whose operations were focused in Mexico, where her responsibilities included overseeing the company's financial operations in three countries and managing cash flows from sales of gold from two mines. In addition, Mrs. O'Donnell was the CFO of a Canadian manufacturing company that sold products exclusively to the mining industry. Mrs. O'Donnell was an integral part of the team that took the company public as an income trust in 2005 and then sold it to a private equity group in 2007.
Mr. Darren Koningen is a professional engineer (metallurgy) with 20 years of international mining experience and as Virgin's Vice President, Project Development will be managing the work necessary to complete the pre-feasibility study on Virgin's Los Verdes project. Mr. Koningen is currently an independent metallurgical consultant, managing process development projects, test work and metallurgical studies on behalf of clients. He currently acts as Vice President, Technical Services at Gowest Amalgamated Resources Ltd. and most recently, was Vice President of Project Development, and before that, VP-Operations and VP-Engineering for Castle Gold Corp. Before joining Castle Gold, Mr. Koningen was employed as a Senior Process Engineer (mining and metallurgy) with Kvaerner Engineering. Mr. Koningen's broad international experience in metallurgy process design and operations has allowed him to make significant contributions to bringing two operating and profitable gold mines into production in the past 5 years. Mr. Koningen obtained his Bachelor of Applied Science, Mineral Process Engineering from Queens University in 1990.
About Virgin Metals
Virgin Metals is a junior exploration and development company; its projects include two copper-molybdenum porphyry properties in Sonora, northern Mexico. One of these, Los Verdes, is currently the subject of a pre-feasibility study while the other, Cuatro Hermanos, is the focus of ongoing exploration efforts.
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Contacts:
Virgin Metals Inc.
Chris Frostad
(416) 603-8368
www.virginmetals.com
