Mr. Hans Smit, President and Chief Executive Officer, has 20 years of worldwide underwater mining and subsea engineering, operations and management experience.

He was President of Neptune Minerals, Inc. from 2015 to 2017.He served as Managing Director of IHC MMP focused on providing services to the underwater mining industry worldwide. Prior to this, Mr. Smit was the Projects Director of Marine and Mineral Projects (Pty) Ltd a company specializing in providing the subsea diamond mining industry engineering and operation solutions.

He has designed, developed, implemented and optimized numerous underwater mining systems, in particular, the crawler technology being used by De Beers Crawler for subsea diamond mining.

Mr. David S. Huber, SVP Business Development, has 45 years of offshore oil & gas experience in the GOM and internationally, all with exploration and production companies.

Dave started his career as a subsea drilling engineer at Exxon and then moved onto the North Sea for 11 years with Hamilton Oil Company where he held the positions of Chief Engineer, Manager: Planning and Economics and finally Production Manager.  Dave went on to co-found two deepwater E&P companies in the GOM: Mariner Energy, which had a successful IPO on the NYSE and then bought by Apache Corporation for $4 billion, and Deep Gulf Energy, which was sold to Kosmos Energy for $1.25 billion.

He retired in 2017 as Sr. VP Operations and Projects. He serves on the board of Ocean Minerals and Neptune Minerals, both deepwater mining companies, Respinnovation a French medical device company and Subsea Infrastructure LLC, an offshore financing company.

Investing time and talent into “Expanding Knowledge through Exploration” for a financially independent Cook Islands, after fourteen and a half transformational years, ending in July 2023 as Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer for Bank of the Cook Islands, Vaine’s banking experience includes serving with ANZ and CIDB, and is underscored with a Masters in International Economics and Finance (University of Queensland) as well as an Affiliate in Development Bank Management (Asia Pacific Institute of Development Finance), and Member of New Zealand Institute of Directors.

Vaine has also held membership with various women and girls organisations such as Cook Islands Women’s Counselling Centre, Cook Islands Girl Guides, Cook Islands Business and Professional Women’s Association and as Chairperson for the Finance Commission of the Cook Islands Red Cross.

Ms. Laurie Meyer, Chief Projects Officer, has over 30 years of experience in aerospace and marine engineering. She led the Deep Reach Technology team as Principal Investigator for the US Army Research Labs funded cooperative research project to assess the economic viability of a deep sea based new source for Rare Earth Elements.

Prior to joining DRT in 2013 she was Chief Technologist for offshore renewables projects at Lockheed Martin Corporation and led the multi-contractor engineering team funded by the US Naval Facilities Command to design small and large-scale Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plants and prototype key enabling technology. Ms. Meyer was also responsible for internal R&D projects and technology insertion planning in her role as Chief Technologist. She served as Chief Engineer and Systems Integrator for a wide range of other programs at Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman (space, air and ground), after beginning her career as an analyst at Hughes Aircraft and Lead Systems Engineer at Martin Marietta. Laurie holds a MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Mr. van Eck’s experience ranges from initial exploration and permitting and concept studies, to project implementation and operation in diverse locations such as Southern Africa, New Zealand, and Alaska.

Mr. van Eck has reviewed and completed many Concept and Pre-Feasibility Studies related to offshore mining. During the course of these studies, he has worked with consultants in North America, Europe, South America, and New Zealand. These include e a concept study that involves hard rock cutting in an underwater environment. He has established an extensive network of geological, mineral resource management, and technical experts in the field of marine mining.

John McIntyre is Moana’s Geology Manager; his primary responsibilities are the quantification and charecterisation of existing nodule resources and the discovery of additional nodule fields.  He also advises management on other geological issues that arise during Moana’s exploration activities.

Mr. McIntyre has worked as a geologist in terrestrial exploration for 44 years. Primarily for copper and gold, with occasional forays into a wide range of commodities including uranium, lead/zinc, iron, tin, and coal.  Whilst largely in exploration, his experience includes an aggregate of four years in operating mines and a similar period as an engineering geologist.

During this exploration work, Mr. McIntyre has been instrumental in the discovery of two world class mineral deposits: the Rio Blanco porphyry copper/molybdenum deposit in Peru, and the Caspiche porphyry copper/gold deposit in Chile.

Matthew Sawa, Manager of Business Development has over 25 years of experience in various energy and offshore projects with prominent management roles in places like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen, and India.

Prior to joining Ocean Minerals he spent years managing 9-figure deepwater offshore production EPC contracts, always delivering the budgeted cash, margin, and delivery time. His projects were in West Africa, Venezuela, and then led the commercial team for all large dollar projects after that. He has been the Contracts and Commercial Director for major pipeline maintenance companies and has also been part of successful small companies and startups, including a company for offshore wind that secured investment commitments of over $100M.

He is a graduate of the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dr Colin Seaborn, Chief Metallurgist, has broad metallurgical and business analysis experience in the mineral processing industry. This included over 20 years with CRA (now Rio Tinto) in base metals, gold and coal covering both operations and project development as well as project evaluation for CRA Group Executives.

Subsequently, he has assisted mineral exploration companies to set up initial metallurgical testing and project evaluation for base metals and gold projects in Australia and Namibia. He has organized metallurgical testing and evaluated on-shore processing options for Neptune Minerals’ various underwater base metal and gold prospects in the south west Pacific. As well as his work in the mineral industry, he has, through his own consulting company, conducted organisation improvement projects in various sectors including manufacturing and waste management.

He has a PhD in metallurgy from the University of NSW and an MSc in mineral economics from Macquarie University.