About Us
LBMA Board
Meeting quarterly, the Board sets our strategic and business vision and scrutinises our performance, with sub-committees advising on specific areas of expertise.
About Us
Meeting quarterly, the Board sets our strategic and business vision and scrutinises our performance, with sub-committees advising on specific areas of expertise.
LBMA Chairman
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LBMA Chairman
After a 10-year academic career, Dr Paul Fisher was a senior figure at the Bank of England for 26 years, retiring at the end of July 2016. He was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, the interim Financial Policy Committee and the PRA Board. During the Great Financial Crisis he worked in the Markets Area of the Bank, from March 2009 as Executive Director responsible, amongst other things, for the Bank’s programme of asset purchases for quantitative easing. In June 2014 he was appointed Deputy Head of the Prudential Regulation Authority. Previously, from 2002, he ran the Bank’s Foreign Exchange Division where he had a constructive relationship with the LBMA and developed a working knowledge of the bullion market. Since leaving the Bank he has been working on Climate Change and Sustainability in the financial sector, including for the EC. He has also been writing on matters of financial stability, policy co-ordination and governance, competition policy, supervision and regulation. Among a range of outside positions he is a Non-Executive Director at the UK Debt Management Office; Senior Associate at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership; Senior Research Fellow at the DAFM centre, King’s College Business School; and he is a Visiting Professor in Economics and Finance at Richmond University, the American International University in London.
Chief Executive
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Chief Executive
Ruth was appointed Chief Executive of the LBMA in January 2014. She is responsible for the success and strategic development of the LBMA, in partnership with the Chairman and the Board. She is also responsible for maintaining accountability to and the quality of, the Association's Membership and Good Delivery Refiners as well as representing the interests of the Association in relation to regulators, investors, media and international precious metals markets.
Before being appointed Chief Executive, she spent seven years working in the Association, initially as Commercial Director and then as Deputy Chief Executive, where she acted as the main lead on Governmental Affairs. She was also responsible for the Association's work on supply chain due diligence, with particular regard to the creation and implementation of the LBMA’s Responsible Gold Guidance. She has represented the Association at industry, governmental and multi-stakeholder regulatory forums. She continues to serve as Vice Chair of the OECD Multi-Stakeholder Governance Group for Responsible Minerals. As Commercial Director, she oversaw the development of the LBMA Conference, the LBMA's quarterly publication the Alchemist and the LBMA website.
Prior to joining the LBMA, she worked in bank finance and US corporate law at the law firms of White & Case and Norton Rose, and also acted as a monitor at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. She has an MSc in History of International Relations from the London School of Economics and a degree in English Literature from Kenyon College in Ohio.
Executive Board Director & General Counsel
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Executive Board Director & General Counsel
As Executive Director and General Counsel of LBMA, Sakhila leads on sustainability, notably, the responsible sourcing and ESG agenda. Her role also includes leading on market development projects and all the legal and regulatory work. As a Board Member she works closely with the Directors and the CEO on the strategic direction of LBMA, guiding on the governance and legal and compliance risks.
Following the success of LBMA’s responsible sourcing programme, Sakhila’s focus has broadened to ensure that this grows to become the leading industry standard - by establishing principal ESG requirements. She has advised the industry on how this and the wider sustainability principles impact the precious metals sector. She is a leading industry subject matter expert and has spoken at several global events.
Sakhila is continuously engaged with industry participants across the value chain, as well as civil society and media. She has strongly focused on active lobbying on a number of issues, including financial services regulations, fostering relationships with several governments and regulators. She educates stakeholders on the dynamics of the precious metals markets and LBMA’s role and work. Sakhila is also involved in setting policies, establishing market standards and leading the incident management process within the LBMA, to resolve high profiled issues.
In addition, Sakhila works on market development projects – such as leading the Gold Bar Integrity project, which focuses on how technology can help address supply chain issues. The global remit of this project and the multiple other complex projects that she has worked on, means that Sakhila is often invited to share her thoughts on new market initiatives by stakeholders.
Sakhila brings a wealth of experience having previously worked in the energy and commodities industry where she dealt with compliance, legal and regulatory matters. Sakhila read law at the London School of Economics and went onto qualify as a solicitor.
Vice Chairman of LBMA Board | Managing Director, ICBC Standard Bank Plc
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Vice Chairman of LBMA Board | Managing Director, ICBC Standard Bank Plc
Raj joined ICBC Standard Bank Plc as a Managing Director in September 2015. ICBC Standard Bank is a leading financial markets and commodities bank that benefits from its unique Chinese and African parentage. Raj Heads up the Precious Metals Strategic Business Development, Clearing and Vaulting as well as eCommerce. Raj is also a Director of London Precious Metals Clearing Limited (LPMCL). Prior to joining ICBCS Raj held senior positions over 11 years at Deutsche Bank including the Global Head of Clearing and Vaulting, Head of Precious Sales and Physical Trading. Raj also represented DB on the LBMA Physical Committee and was a Director of the LPMCL. Prior to DB Raj worked at Goldman Sachs for 11 years supporting the Metals and Commodities business in various roles.
Head of EMEA Metals and Agricultural Sales, BNP Paribas
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Head of EMEA Metals and Agricultural Sales, BNP Paribas
Davide has been working in the bullion market since 2002, when he started at JPMorgan in Metals Sales covering producers, central banks and private banks in EMEA. He moved to Merrill Lynch in 2008 where he continued in Metal Sales until 2011. In addition to precious metals he also worked in base metals and commodities investor products. His primary area of expertise is in metal derivatives. He is now responsible for bullion transactions with official institutions globally at BNP Paribas where he is Head of EMEA Metals and Agricultural Sales executing precious and base metal transactions with corporates and financial institutions. Davide has also been a member of the LBMA membership committee since 2010 and graduated with a degree in Industrial Economics from the University of Warwick.
CEO, Bank of China (UK) Limited
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CEO, Bank of China (UK) Limited
Wenjian joined Bank of China Head Office in 1996. Wenjian was the Deputy General Manager and the Chief Credit Officer of Bank of China London Branch, and also the Chief Risk Officer of Bank of China (UK) Limited from December 2004. Wenjian has served as a Director and the Chief Executive Officer of Bank of China (UK) Limited since November 2018. Wenjian was educated at Beijing Foreign Studies University in China to postgraduate level, and received his MBA with Distinction from University of Hertfordshire in 1996. He has been a CFA Charter Holder since 2008.
Chief, International Planning Office & Head of President’s Strategy at Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo K.K. & TANAKA HOLDINGS Co., Ltd
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Chief, International Planning Office & Head of President’s Strategy at Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo K.K. & TANAKA HOLDINGS Co., Ltd
A graduate of Shizuoka University, majoring in Inorganic Chemistry, Hitoshi’s main roles since 2000 has been providing advice to the Management at Tanaka Holdings on international precious metals issues and representing Tanaka on a number of international precious metal organisations such as LBMA, LPPM, WGC, IPA, IPMI, PMC, OECD, etc. This has involved extensive travel throughout Europe and North America.
Hitoshi has participated in almost all meetings of the LBMA and LPPM Referees Groups in person and with one exception (Mumbai) and has attended every LBMA conference. In 2002, Hitoshi arranged for Tanaka to provide the LBMA (and the other new members of the referees group) with the technique for producing gold reference samples. Also as a member of the LBMA Referees Group, he has contributed to the technical development of the GD System including the introduction of Proactive Monitoring in 2004 and the introduction of Responsible Gold Guidance.
Since its establishment in 2008, Hitoshi has been a member of the LBMA’s Reference Material Steering Committee. Tanaka produced the LBMA’s first gold Certified Reference Materials in 2009 and late last year was awarded the contract to produce the next set of silver Certified Reference Materials. Since 2010, Hitoshi has provided advice on the LBMA’s gold assaying Proficiency Testing Scheme which is now carried out annually and since 2004, has acted as advisor for the LBMA’s Assaying and Refining Conference.
Tanaka has been very active not only in the Asian market places but also in both Europe and North America. Hitoshi was for several years a member of the Board of Tanaka’s Korean JV, d Heesung Metals Ltd. The LBMA’s engagement with the Asian market is a vital part of its strategy in coming years and Hitoshi hopes that his membership of the LBMA Board will allow him to contribute to the maintenance and growth of the LBMA’s position in Asia.
Concerning the European market, Tanaka’s involvement is reflected in Hitoshi’s attendance during the past decade at almost every meeting on REACH organised by the PMC (Precious Metals Consortium where Tanaka has been the only non-European refiner full member.) In addition, to help it focus on European issues, Tanaka established a representative office in London in 2013 under Hitoshi’s leadership as Tanaka’s permanent representative. As for Gold usage for technical applications Hitoshi has been a member of International Advisory Board of the Conferences organised by major market players, academic organizations, industrial enterprises and industry organizations such as WGC.
Managing Director, Global Head of Precious Metals, HSBC
Managing Director, Global Head of Precious Metals, HSBC
Non-Executive Director
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Non-Executive Director
Andrew Quinn currently serves as a non-Executive Director of Barrick Gold Corp. and is a member of its Audit and Risk Committee. Before joining the board of Barrick, after its merger with Randgold Resources, Andy had served as the Senior Independent Director of Randgold and had been a non-Executive Director since 2011. A plus 40 year veteran of the mining industry, Andy graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Mineral Exploitation (mining engineering) from Cardiff University. He began his career in Anglo American's gold division in in South Africa in 1975, holding various management and technical positions. He worked briefly for Greenbushes Tin in Australia before joining the Mining Journal in 1982 as editor of its gold publications. In 1984 he joined James Capel (later HSBC Investment Banking), ultimately heading its mining corporate finance activities for six years from late 1989, before joining the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) in 1996. Andy retired at the end of 2011 from his position as CIBC's head of mining investment banking for Europe and Africa after 15 years in the role. He is a member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. He joined the Board of the LBMA as a non Executive Director in 2016 and he chairs the HR Committee and serves on the Finance Committee.
Non-Executive Director
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Non-Executive Director
Isabelle Strauss-Kahn is an international consultant in Financial Asset Management as well as being an Advisory Board member of the World Gold Council and the Treasurer/ Board member of the Paris Institute of Advanced Studies. She also provides advisory services for public asset management covering a range of issues including governance, strategic asset allocation, portfolio management and operational procedures. From 1999 to 2008, she was Deputy and then Director (2003) of Market Operations at the BDF, overseeing monetary policy implementation and reserve management of foreign exchange and gold. From 2008 to 2018, she was Lead Financial Officer in the Treasury division of the World Bank, providing financial services, technical assistance and training to many central banks and global sovereign wealth funds. Prior to this, she held managerial positions in supervising risks successively at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and at the BDF. She was a member of several international European Committees including the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. She has spoken at numerous conferences organised by public and private financial institutions and has published several articles on reserve management. She graduated in Economics (PhD Core) at the University of Chicago (USA), in Business at HEC (Haut Enseignement Commercial, Paris) and in Law (Paris-I).
Chief Executive of Rand Refinery and Director of Prestige Bullion, a JV with the South African Mint
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Chief Executive of Rand Refinery and Director of Prestige Bullion, a JV with the South African Mint
Prior to joining Rand Refinery in June 2015, Praveen was Group CEO of then JSE listed Delta EMD Limited, with strategic responsibilities for manganese battery materials refining operations in both South Africa and Australia and continued to serve on that board as a non-executive director until December 2020.
Prior to Delta EMD, he was CEO of Gold Reef Speciality Chemicals, and worked for 20 years in various senior management and chemical engineering roles within Huntsman Corporation titanium-di-oxide business.
He is currently Chairman of the Ekurhuleni Jewellery Project (EJP), which is involved in community SMME development and jewellery manufacturing incubation programmes.
Praveen studied chemical engineering, holds an MBA with distinction from the University of Wales and completed his executive development programs at the University of Cape Town. He is a motorsport enthusiast and spends his spare time on his collection of modern and classic cars.
