West Red Lake Gold (WRLG.V) CEO Shane Williams on Building a Team
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January 23, 2024 – TheNewswire – Global Stocks News – In a January 18, 2024 message to West Red Lake Gold Mines (TSXV:WRLG) (OTC:WRLGF) shareholders, CEO Shane Williams explained his team building strategy.
The unedited contents of that message are printed below.
“As the CEO of West Red Lake Gold (WRLG), my first task was to assemble a management team to bring this asset back into production.
A typical deck of a Canadian mining company features a galaxy of mature executives in their 50s and 60s. The last wave of successful precious metal companies was run by baby boomers. Major and mid-tier mining companies have log jams of younger talent begging to be unleashed.
We set out to assemble a young, energetic, highly skilled team. To achieve this goal, we did not rely on LinkedIn, or mining recruitment agencies. One of the advantages of working with Frank Giustra’s group is that it has connections with a lot of resource companies. People were recommended to us through word of mouth.
Let’s be clear: youth + confidence + ambition ≠ expertise. Many young professionals desperately want to be leaders. They are impatient. They show up to meetings and talk like leaders, but they get quickly found out. A career in the mining industry is not a game of Snakes & Ladders. You can’t bypass any of the squares.
To function effectively as a manager for an underground mining company, you need to have spent a lot of time underground. We looked for young managers who have worked in the trenches, done the hard yards. There is no shortcut to leadership. I’m privileged to be the CEO of WRLG, but it took me 25 years to get here. I wouldn’t have been ready 20 years ago, or 10.
Experience and talent are obligatory, but an equally important quality is attitude. That’s in you or it isn’t. The desire to succeed, to improve, to learn from your mistakes and to keep going. No amount of technical skill can adequately compensate for a negative attitude.
Our motivated young team accomplished a lot in 2023. The Rowan drill program exceeded expectations. Early drill results at Madsen also featured high-grade intercepts. Institutional investors took notice. In a challenging gold market we raised CDN $46.7 million to fund our operations. During that 12 months, the WRLG share price increased about 90%.
In the near future, you will hear from some of our young management team, including Maurice Mostert - V.P. of Technical Services; Will Robinson V.P. of Exploration; Jill Christmann - Chief Geologist, Derek Teevan - VP of Community Affairs, and Harpreet Dhaliwal, our new CFO.
Knowing more about them, and the vital roles they play, will give you a deeper understanding of the West Red Lake Gold project. After that, you will hear from our Executive Chairman, Tom Meredith and our Co-founder and major shareholder, Frank Giustra.
Next week in Part 2 of our messages to shareholders, you will hear from Maurice Mostert, our V.P. of Technical Services.
Shane Williams
Chief Executive Officer of WRLG”
Click here to learn more about West Red Lake Gold Mines.