Age 65
Position Chairman, Polyus Gold
Salary $250,000
Bob Buchan knows a fair bit about mineral resources. The Aberdeen-born entrepreneur, who lives in Toronto, founded Kinross Gold Corporation in the early Nineties and helped it to become one of the world’s largest gold producers. He left in 2004 to found Katanga Mining, the copper miner, in the Democratic Republic of Congo before selling his stake in 2007 to Dan Gertler, the Israeli investor.
Mr Buchan says that his experience in the sector generally, and of mining in Russia in particular (one of the Kinross’s assets was a mine in the far east of the country), meant that he was “happy to help” Polyus, the Russian gold producer that he now chairs, to make its “transition