Shirley Hayes

Shirley Hayes is a mining entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in copper exploration and production. She is the founder and CEO of SHiP Copper Mines, which owns and operates a large tenement in the Northern Cape region of South Africa, and the chair of Copper360, a new venture that aims to build the next copper giant in Africa.

With her synthetic thinking and futurism skills, she creates and executes a strategic vision for the region, leveraging the abundant natural resources and the growing demand for copper. She is passionate about advancing the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards and practices in the mining industry, and has won multiple awards for her efforts in diversity, equality, and inclusion, and technological modernization. She has a strong background in surface mining and blasting, and is one of the first women in South Africa to have qualified for a blasting certificate. She has also studied investment management from the University of Cape Town, and uses her financial acumen to optimize the profitability and sustainability of her ventures.