SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: Australian Vanadium Limited (ASX: AVL) has appointed Graham Arvidson as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Company. Graham will work alongside Managing Director Vincent Algar and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Todd Richardson to progress the Australian Vanadium Project through the final stages of development and into production.
Graham Arvidson brings additional business leadership skills, project development and vanadium acumen to AVL, further strengthening AVL’s industry leading team. His appointment is an important step in enabling AVL’s vision of developing and operating the Australian Vanadium Project and becoming a world leader in the vanadium market.
Managing Director, Vincent Algar comments, “The Board is delighted to have been able to secure such a high calibre individual as Graham to work with the team to develop the Project. Graham’s appointment brings the right mix of leadership, industry acumen and proven track record in project development and operations to bolster the success of the Company and its current team through the developer-producer transition and beyond.”
Newly appointed Chief Executive Officer, Graham Arvidson comments, “I’m truly excited to be joining Australian Vanadium which has the rare and exciting combination of vision, great people, true industry leading expertise, ESG leadership, great assets and macroeconomic tailwinds.
Having been in ‘the eye of the lithium storm’ for the last four years, I see a unique parallel opportunity to leverage recognition and scale in the vanadium sector. Watching AVL’s progress, I have always been impressed with the technical discipline that the AVL team and its consultants have pursued and I have the highest confidence that this project will be successful. I look forward to building on the foundations of this Company and team and leading the charge as we evolve from developer to producer.”
Graham Arvidson brings proven project development expertise, a deep Western Australian project development network specific to mining, commercial acumen borne of managing contracts from both the client and contractor side and extensive project management experience in tendering, negotiation, conforming and managing O&M, EPC, EPCM, EPC-O, and BOO forms of project delivery.
Graham is a passionate industry advocate for best practice in project development and operations and supports these causes through frequent guest lecturing at industry bodies and at the University of Western Australia, speaking as an industry practitioner on the topics of best practice in Project Management, Operational Excellence and the evolving lithium sector.
During the past four years, through his executive role at Primero Group, Graham has led lithium operations to achieve excellence in production, safety and quality, while providing industry leading project development and due diligence services to clients across the Australian and North American lithium sectors for clients including Pilbara Minerals, Tianqi Lithium, Altura Mining, Alita Resources, Galaxy Resources and Core Lithium.
This deep understanding of what it takes to rapidly develop and successfully operate new mines in an emerging sector like lithium, coupled with his upstream and downstream operational experience in vanadium, gives Graham unique insights to leverage opportunities and avoid pitfalls in the vanadium sector as it evolves to meet the changing needs of industry.