Director of Field Operations

About the Company

The mining industry has steadily become worse at finding new ore deposits, requiring >10X more capital to make discoveries compared to 30 years ago. The easy-to-find, near-surface deposits have largely been found, and the industry has chronically under-invested in new exploration technology, relying on the manual techniques of yesteryear – even as demand accelerates for copper, lithium, and other metals to build electric vehicles, renewable energy, and data centers.

KoBold builds AI models for mineral exploration and deploys those models—alongside our novel sensors—to guide decisions on KoBold-owned-and-operated exploration programs. In the six years since founding, KoBold has become by far both the largest independent mineral exploration company and the largest exploration technology developer. Our data scientists and software engineers, who come from leading technology companies, jointly lead exploration programs with our renowned exploration geologists.

KoBold has proven its first discovery with materially less capital than the industry average and found one of the best copper deposits ever discovered: the copper is far more concentrated than the global average of copper mines, and this asset alone is expected to generate meaningful revenue for decades. KoBold has a portfolio of more than 60 other projects, each of which has the potential for another high-quality discovery.

KoBold is privately held; investors include institutional asset managers T. Rowe Rice and Canada Pension Plan Investments; technology venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, BOND Capital, and Standard Investments; and natural resources companies Equinor, BHP, and Mitsubishi.

About the Position

In this role, you will help us conduct safe and effective field operations on our exploration projects around the world, with a near term focus on North America and Australia. You will work closely with the COO, field operations leads and technical team leads to plan and execute our field activities to meet our business objectives without causing harm to our people, our contractors and partners, or the communities and environments where we operate.

Responsibilities

The Field Operations Director will be responsible for:

• Supervision: Provide supervisory oversight, functional mentoring and leadership of project-focused Field Operations Leads, principally those that are North America based.  Provide functional mentoring and leadership to operations teams in global subsidiaries.
• Planning: With the Field Ops leads and the project technical team leaders, develop actionable operations plans and budgets to safely and efficiently achieve program technical objectives.
• Exploration Program Execution: Through the Field Ops leads and the project technical team leaders, oversee safe execution of exploration programs to deliver agreed technical objectives within approved budgets.
• Compliance: Understand applicable local laws and regulations and the practices of our joint venture partners and ensure that we follow them in all our operations
• HSE: Act as HSE functional leader.  Establish and maintain KoBold HSE standards, establish and maintain the global HSE incident database, and provide periodic reporting. 
• Operations Control Center: Maintain daily contact with and monitor the status of KoBold personnel and contractors while in the field
• Field Service Contractors: Identify and evaluate contractors and vendors for a wide range of field operations, from camp construction to helicopter transport to emergency medical services
• Contract Administration and Invoicing: Review contracts and reconcile invoices to budgets, contract terms, and goods/services delivered to ensure proper payment
• Logistics: Arrange for the shipment of equipment and material to and from KoBold’s project sites
• Process Improvement: Creating ways of working that allow us to continue to work more effectively and to be nimble so that we can support machine-learning-driven dynamic field programs, where we adapt our plan based on the data we collect at each stage
• Other Operations: Help out broadly with operational matters across the company, from insurance to stakeholder relations 

Qualifications

You must have:

• At least 8 years of experience conducting field operations in mineral exploration & mining, oil & gas or a related industry
• Planned and conducted helicopter supported exploration programs in remote environments
• Demonstrated supervisory experience.
• Demonstrated commitment to high standards of health & safety in the workplace
• A high degree of independence and the ability to work effectively with limited supervision
• Enjoyment in working with people in a wide variety of disciplines and different parts of the world
• Interest in contributing broadly to the success of the company and eager to pitch in where needed

It is helpful but not required to have:

• Planned and conducted supported exploration programs in multiple countries, ie, international operating experience.
• Worked in a small company or as a member of a very small team with a broad mandate

KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, disability, or veteran status.

The US base salary range for this full-time exempt position is $180,000-$230,000.

Location: KoBold is a remote first workplace, we are open to candidates currently residing anywhere in the United States or Canada. All candidates must be authorized to legally work in either the United States or Canada