Board of Directors
Daniel has over 20 years' experience as an executive leading companies in Canada, South America and Russia. He holds a B.Eng (Hons) in Mining Engineering from the Camborne School of Mines and currently serves as a Non-Executive Director of Leading Edge Materials Corp.
Over the past decade, Burns has focused on identifying and evaluating distressed assets globally. Through creative recapitalisation, corporate restructuring and strategic realignment, Glenpani and Burns have sourced and executed numerous private and public market opportunities across the natural resources, technology and alternative energy sectors. These investments have delivered significant returns, including cases in excess of 100x on capital deployed. Burns has also participated in corporate mineral transactions with Tier-1 mining companies, including Rio Tinto.
Burns became involved with Eastport six years ago, when the Company was still a single-project vehicle. Working closely with Co-Founder, Rick Bonner, he helped reposition Eastport into a proactive yet patient critical-metals developer – anticipating increased market recognition for high-quality development projects in Tier-1 mining jurisdictions such as Botswana.
Burns holds an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Glasgow. Before forming Glenpani Group, he was a full-time trader of securities and derivatives, primarily focused on commodities, mining equities and foreign exchange.
David has extensive M&A and African operational experience. As Director of Geology at African Minerals Exploration & Development (AMED) Funds from 2013 to 2018, he was responsible for allocating and monitoring $450 million of investment into exploration projects at various stages of development across a diverse array of commodities throughout Africa. Earlier in his career, he served as a Senior Geologist at Cleveland Potash from 2006 to 2013 and worked as a geologist with Rio Tinto and the British Geological Survey.
A co-founder of Westport Resources Namibia, Rick built a significant exploration company for Forsys Metals Corp., a TSX-listed company. This work included advancing their key project, the Valencia uranium deposit, from the exploration stage to a measured resource, at which point the project was delivered for development consideration.
Rick is a licensed Professional Geologist (non-practicing in the jurisdiction) with NAPEG, Canada. He has also held a number of directorships at Canadian public junior exploration companies and founded several exploration companies, including Kalahari Key Mineral Resources in Botswana.
Since 2004, David has devoted himself to public service. From 2004 to 2015, he served as Judge of the High Court of Botswana, as well as sitting ad hoc on the Court of Appeal. In August 2015, he presented his credentials to President Barack Obama and was duly appointed as Ambassador of Botswana to the United States of America, a position which he held until 2020.
