The people who find and build projects.

Jim Paterson is a co-founder and principal of Discovery Group, with 28 years of executive leadership in the mining industry spanning capital raises (over $300M in aggregate), M&A (over $1B in aggregate), joint ventures, spin-outs, RTOs, and IPOs. 

He was a long-standing and active director of Kaminak Gold Corp. (acquired by Goldcorp), a founding director of Northern Empire Resources Corp. (acquired by Coeur Mining), and a director of Great Bear Royalties Corp. (acquired by Royal Gold). He founded Corsa Capital in 2007, and a 2010 transaction created an industry-leading metallurgical coal producer with a C$250M market capitalization. 

In addition to chairing ValOre and Targa Exploration, Jim is a director of K2 Gold and Aquitaine Metals and a strategic advisor to Kodiak Copper and Prospector Metals. He is an active supporter and champion of all member companies of Discovery Group.

Nick Smart brings extensive experience leading the design, delivery, and operation of complex mining capital projects globally. He earned a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town and began his career in Anglo American’s Platinum, Coal, and Base Metals divisions in South Africa. He then spent six years with Anglo American in Brazil, in the states of Minas Gerais and Goiás, developing and building nickel mines and processing plants. There he gained working fluency in Portuguese and a lasting appreciation for the heritage, talent, and enormous potential of Brazil’s mining sector. 

Nick’s more recent executive roles have centered on corporate strategy, including establishing and launching a new entity and corporate brand for laboratory-grown diamonds on behalf of industry leader De Beers Group in London. As a senior executive and company director, he has built world-class advanced manufacturing facilities in the U.S.A., India, and Thailand, forged commercial partnerships, held P&L accountability, overseen stakeholder and industry engagement, generated sales revenue, and developed and deployed new technologies. A committed problem-solver and community coach, Nick also serves as a board advisor to startups developing novel and disruptive processing technologies for metals and critical minerals.

Thiago Diniz is an exploration geologist with 15 years of field and project development experience across Brazil and Canada, spanning PGE, gold, and base metals as well as industrial and energy commodities including phosphate, potash, and uranium. He is a Professional Geoscientist (P.Geo.) registered with Professional Geoscientists Ontario and holds an M.Sc. in Economic Geology from Queen’s University.  

As Vice President of Exploration at ValOre Metals (TSX-V: VO), he leads the company’s technical and exploration work in Brazil, with a primary focus on advancing the Pedra Branca PGE+Au project in Ceará through drill targeting, resource growth, and the technical evaluations that move the project forward. Alongside Pedra Branca, he evaluates new opportunities for ValOre and engages with capital markets, regulators, and partners on the technical story behind the projects. 

His experience spans the full mineral project lifecycle, from greenfields targeting through advanced development. He has designed and executed large-scale exploration programs, led resource delineation drilling, and managed the metallurgical and technical work that underpins development studies and project decisions.  

What drives Diniz is integrating technically rigorous, boots-on-the-ground exploration with practical project development and project economics, ensuring that good geology translates into decisions a project can actually be built on.

Robert Scott, CPA, CA, CFA, brings more than 20 years of professional experience in accounting, corporate finance, and merchant and commercial banking, and has served on the management teams and boards of a number of Canadian publicly traded companies. 

He is a founder and president of Corex Management Inc., a private company providing accounting, administration, and corporate compliance services to privately held and publicly traded companies. He currently holds senior management and board positions with several TSX Venture Exchange issuers, including Riverside Resources Inc., Great Bear Resources Ltd., and Northern Empire Resources Corp.

Jeff Dare has more than 15 years of professional experience managing external reporting and corporate compliance for TSX Venture Exchange and CSE listed issuers. He currently serves as corporate secretary and advisor to a number of listed issuers and works closely with external partners and service providers across legal, compliance, transfer agency, audit, banking, and insurance. He obtained his BA from Simon Fraser University.

John Robins is a geologist, prospector, and entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in the mining industry.  

In 2025, he was the recipient of PDAC’s Viola R. MacMillan Award for his leadership excellence in mineral exploration financing. He also received AME’s Murray Pezim Award in 2022 for his significant contribution to the financing of exploration and development projects over the last 20 years, as well as the Spud Huestis Award in 2008 for having made significant contributions to mineral exploration in British Columbia and Yukon.  

Mr. Robins has been involved in several notable discoveries, including the 5M oz Coffee Gold deposit in Yukon, the Three Bluffs gold deposit in the Committee Bay greenstone belt, the Aviat / Churchill diamond districts of Nunavut, and the Great Bear project in north-western Ontario. Through his entrepreneurship, John has been instrumental in over CDN$3B in M&A activity and has generated over $1B in direct and indirect mineral expenditures throughout Canada, Latin America, and Australia. Notable recent successes include the sales of Great Bear Resources Ltd. to Kinross Gold Corp. for $1.8B, Great Bear Royalties Corp. to Royal Gold Inc. for $200M, and Kaminak Gold Corp. to Goldcorp for $510M. 

John’s outstanding strategic guidance, technical expertise, strong industry relationships, and steadfast adherence to ethical practices, underpin his status as a leading steward of the junior mining industry. He currently acts as Chairman of K2 Gold Corp. and Aquitaine Metals Corp. Mr. Robins is also a Strategic Advisor to Kodiak Copper Corp., ValOre Metals Corp., CopperEx Resources Corp., and Prospector Metals Corp.

Darren Klinck is an accomplished mining executive with a wide range of management experience working throughout Australasia and the Americas. He is President and Director of Arras Minerals Corp., a junior exploration and development company focused on critical minerals in Kazakhstan. 

He previously served as President and CEO of Bluestone Resources, which he joined following its 2017 acquisition of the Cerro Blanco gold project in Guatemala, leading the team that financed and advanced the project through resource expansion, feasibility, and engineering. Earlier, he spent more than a decade with OceanaGold (2007 to 2017) as a member of the executive committee that grew the company from a sub-C$100M market capitalization to more than C$3B and into a multi-mine, international gold producer. 

Over the past 20 years, Darren has negotiated equity and debt financing packages totaling more than $800M and has led teams in emerging markets with a strong focus on corporate social responsibility, community engagement, and government relations. He was appointed Honorary Consul in British Columbia for the Republic of Kazakhstan in 2023 and volunteers as a director with the Canada-Eurasia Chamber of Commerce. He is based in Vancouver, Canada.

Dale Wallster is a geologist and prospector with over 40 years of experience focused on the targeting and discovery of unconformity-related uranium, structurally controlled gold, and VMS deposits. 

He was the founder and president of Roughrider Uranium Corp., a company acquired by Hathor Exploration Limited. Dale and his team are widely credited in the mineral exploration sector with the discovery of Hathor’s Roughrider deposit. In January 2012, Hathor became a wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto as part of a CAD$650M acquisition.

Garth Kirkham has over 30 years of experience in 3D geoscience computer modeling. He heads Kirkham Geosystems Ltd., which provides consulting services to the environmental, mining, geotechnical, and oil and gas industries. 

He obtained a Bachelor of Science from the University of Alberta in 1983, completing his degree with majors in geophysics, geology, and mathematics, and is a Registered Professional Geoscientist in Alberta, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Ontario, and Manitoba.