Conference Transcript - TDRRF 2026-09-22

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

Well, good morning. How's this mic working? Okay, I'm a walker. I already told them that I'm not a stand-behind-the-podium person. So thank you for that lovely introduction, Jessica. Thanks for believing in this panel and putting it together. You're going to hear from me for about the next 15 minutes, and then I'm going to bring up my panelists, Brian Eisenbrunn and Beth Barodi, and I'll introduce them at that time. So social acceptance for explorers. A lot of you are probably saying, well, maybe not all of you, because I know some of you. What does that mean? So this talk actually, now that I see Steve Enders there, this talk actually builds on something that I heard from Steve two years ago, just in this group that's building, show of hands, you all are going to be part of this talk this morning. Who was here two years ago for Steve's talk? I know Doug was. Okay, I know a few of you were. Steve your talk focused on why a lot of projects fail and it wasn't because of the rocks it was because of what who remembers other than Steve of who was there I know Jessica remembers I'm gonna call on some people all right Steve why do projects often fail if it's not because of of because of people not rocks and he focused his talk primarily on the management teams and we're going to build on the people theme this morning and we're going to talk about a group that's often not talked about project neighbors now to prepare for today i looked at the beaver creek precious metals portal excellent by the way because i love being able to read all of the presentations that were uploaded. So I did. And I know where three of those projects are. There were a lot more than three presentations. But on what I call a people map, I know where three of those projects are. Now, what we're here to do today is talk about why the value of a project is more than the dot on the map because when I went through and I read all the presentations I immediately went to my favorite document the 43 101 and I went to my favorite chapter of that document obviously chapter 20 but you're probably going which one chapter 20 the one that likely because all but four of the projects in the portal had this statement if you can read it this section is not applicable to this technical report this whole concept I I mean, I kind of love the title or environmental studies, permitting, social or community impact. I mean, I've been doing this for 25 years. I still don't know the difference between social and or community, but I love it's all there. And all but four projects have that statement. So that's what we're talking to about today. We're talking about why the value of a project is beyond the dot on the state, beyond the dot on the province, beyond the dot sometimes just in the country. Why you investors and you project proponents need to be asking and showing where the neighborhood is who your neighbors are what their reality is without you a lot of times we talk about their relationship to us if they're mining if they're anti-mining we're gonna get into that just what's their life like like what's the Facebook page what's the up what's that group what do they send around as memes almost to that level what's life like in this community in this village and then the most important that we're going to dive into is do you know how they experience you how they experience you because we've seen what can happen we're going to check in on this for a second to get your hand ready but we've seen permits delayed again we've seen drilling not happening and even if you haven't been seeing this perhaps you've been feeling this because that original on-time on-budget project with this perfectly designed budget all of a sudden needs to be rejigged for additional community meetings additional efforts additional consultants the budgets don't deliver an on-time on-budget project because of community opposition so like i said this is if you've been in a talk with me before you know that it's going to be participatory this isn't just behind your phone or behind your notepad so a quick question before we move on because i just want to level set that what i'm talking about is at all relevant to all of you does if you can raise your hand if you're familiar with any exploration project that could not advance on time, on budget because of community opposition. Are you familiar of any? Okay, I see a lot of hands. That's great. Next question. I'm going to break it down for a second before we vote, so let me get there. To what degree do you think social acceptance, and this is where I'm going to pause, because that's the title of my talk, and you might be saying, I haven't really heard of this term, social acceptance. I have heard of the term social license. Is that what she's talking about? So first, they pretty much mean the same thing. And it means that this community accepts that you're there beyond the legal requirement, beyond the permits. The neighbors accept that you're there. Now, I prefer, and a lot of literature and industry is now starting to prefer this term social acceptance because social license, I got my permitting license, check. I got my social license check but this is a relationship this isn't a one-time check it's done and social acceptance helps describe better that permanence of the relationship so back to the question to what degree do you think social acceptance of an exploration company is under company control these are neighbors who thinks it's a hundred percent under company control all right I like the boldness Wolfgang. Who thinks it's mostly under company control? Okay, you're a little cheating, Brian, but okay, don't look at him. Who thinks it's somewhat under company control? Okay, informed opinion, Trevor. I like that. Who thinks, these are our neighbors, not us. It is not at all under company control. All right, I have a third poll. I didn't put it in the slide, so you're just going to have to listen to me before we get to the next one. Do you think that gaining support, local support, should be the key strategy of a company? Yes or no? Do you think gaining support? Now, here's the thinking. You actually don't need support. Let that sink in for a second. you actually don't need support. Support is nice. I would rather have support. Support is helpful, but you actually don't need it. What you need is trust. Company, community, trust.

Speaker 1

Isn't that the same thing?

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

No. We're going to dive into it. This is my most content-heavy slide. you understand this slide honestly you've understood most of it you truly get this concept you've understood most of it I'm gonna refer to research that came out of Australia society wrote that I pronounced that right Regina I never know if it's the zero society how's the local do it oh there you go the CSIRO the Australian National Science Agency Social Science that came out in 2013 by Dr. Kieran Moffitt, who really was obsessed about this tension between companies and communities, specifically in the mining industry, and wanted to measure what are the exact drivers of this trust, of this social acceptance. And he demonstrated through his research that there are four primary drivers, which he brought together under a concept he calls procedural fairness now the four drivers are does that community member feel heard they've come in they're yelling at you I think this that that that that that do they feel that you are actually listening to them that is powerful that is different than if you agree with them if you want to discuss with them but you are honoring that for them in that moment it was important to share with you that opinion and you heard them do they feel that first variable second three and four are about the experience that they have with you do they feel that you're being transparent do they feel that they're having a consistent experience with your company with everyone in your company could be great that one person is that oh i like hanging out with allison but someone else doesn't really take that space to hear me is it consistent and then finally on the decisions that impact them do they feel that they are made with fair criteria let me illustrate an example for you you need someone new for your team that's great you heard of this great young geologist happens to be son daughter of someone that's on your team that person's available great put that person in the role and you've created a job we're gonna get back to that in a minute isn't that great well 19 other people from that community also saw that you were looking for someone they wanted to apply they wanted to have a chance they saw that this person who happens to be a son daughter of someone who's already buddy buddy with the ceo is already there who might be qualified all in, no, all in herself, all in himself. But did they feel that they had a fair chance? Did they feel that their application was heard? Did they feel that they were being treated, everyone was being treated consistently? Did they feel that the process was transparent? So in this example, yes, you created a job. Yes, you're advancing the work on your project but you actually just created resentment among 19 people that you may not even realize you just created that resentment here to tell you that community opposition is often not due to this pre-existing anti-mining sentiment it existing because of this resist this resentment that you in fact created over years without even knowing it and so when we talked about who are my this is mostly in our control who are my people who said it's mostly in our control you are correct because the primary driver of trust is a hundred percent in your control let that sink in hundred percent in that project's control now the secondary drivers are what companies often lead with we do no harm we follow regulations we're safe and we're creating benefit we're creating jobs if i look at so many websites we are feeding the critical minerals that national security needs and they lead with that but they don't focus on number one and they wonder where this community opposition came from i have to mention i just can't resist now if you're interested in this model uh kieran has been spun off this work and now works in this firm baconic that measures these exact variables which is different from measuring the perception of mining the perception of your project it's how are you experiencing this project that tells you if there's trust now i gotta mention that my other favorite strategy besides I am feeding the security of this country is the hope and praise strategy. The hope and praise strategy. I've seen it just too many times. We're just going to keep our head down, talk to as few people as possible. Hey, we're nice guys. And we're just going to kind of hope that no one notices. And that works. I've seen it work until it doesn't. I might be skewed because that's when they call me but I've seen it too many times in and what happens is is these little pieces of resentment start building up and you don't even see it to the people that maybe didn't raise their hand if they're familiar with the project I challenge you is it I mean there are good I mean there are projects where geologist goes to work every day came home like that is not a headline maybe no one knows about this project that does happen very successfully in a lot of places in the world but I challenge and maybe that's the projects that you're mostly familiar with but I challenge if you didn't raise your hand is it because you're not seeing those variables that are building in this pressure cooker that there will be one more trigger and it's back to what you're seeing in earlier slides so what do we do I get I bought into this model where do I start don't worry I got a 12-step program for you I do it's the social management for exploration to obtain and maintain again it's not a one-time check maintain social acceptance step one you've got to convert that dot on the map those of you who I've seen it it's up there make sure that you define what's called your social area of influence. That's not necessarily your environmental area of influence if you're already in a permitting stage and the government makes you define it in a specific way. That's fine, but do the explicit step of defining why am I talking to this village and not that one? Why am I in this town and not that one? Where do I draw that line? And be very confident, clear, consistent and transparent about it. That's where you start to focus in your neighborhood. Define your neighborhood. Where are you? Then start to understand your neighborhood. What goes on here? What goes on in this daily life? And then figure out number three, whose trust do I have to earn? If you're in a town of 20,000 people, I cannot have these deep relationships. I am a small, cash-strapped exploration project. I cannot build this relationship with 20,000 people. But I do need clear, consistent, transparent, consistent, and fair criteria to define who are the top 20 people. I do need to be really building this relationship. And spoiler alert, it's not always that loudest voice. not always the person with that formal title there are steps 4 through 12 and some of you know me better than others know I could talk about this stuff for hours but I'll be here till tomorrow night so please feel free to find me and at this time I'd like to invite up my panelists Brian Eisenbrough and Beth Barody to take a seat here then I'll stop wandering around I'm gonna sit here thank you you all can be here and I'm gonna introduce them while they take take a seat. Now, Brian Eisenbrunn, you can hear more about his background. She didn't mention I do have a podcast, Planet People Mining. And he was a recent guest of mine because I love his career transition. MBA, finance background, startup background, and some interesting local company experience. And then he makes this pivot to an external relations role. And we go deep into what you've brought from this finance role, some of the natural ability that he has and what he's bringing to his hometown of Durango, Colorado and an exploration project. And we have Beth Barodi. Beth is CEO of Maven Exploration, founder and visionary and co-founder with me of this exploration company. She is also the founder of Femina Collective, this amazing global network of incredible women that she has been leading for six years. She also has a background as an executive at New Gold Canadian Mining Company and some interesting entrepreneurial ventures and some interesting places that I'm sure if you catch her after this talk, she has a lot of stories. So I want to thank you both for being here today because they will provide the live case studies to what I was just sharing. We're going to start with Brian. Catch us up about the La Plata Project in Durango, Colorado. Where was the relationship with the community when you first started your role? What's some of the work you actually did? And how would you describe the path of social acceptance now?

Brian Eisenbrunn, Other

Yeah, thanks, Allison, and good morning, everybody. I think, for me, the best way to describe where the La Plata Project is right now is to go back to day one, or actually technically day two for me. July of 2024, we are out in Mancos, Colorado. We've been asked to attend a meeting that was convened by the Mancos Conservation District. I get to sit anonymously in the crowd. and while I watch our president, Scott Petzl, at the time, present to 70 community members. The meeting was scheduled around a couple of water plans that we had for our project. And we'll just say that it was a tough meeting for Scott. I'm thankful I got to be in the crowd that day. the the questions and and comments that were brought up were focused around these water plans but more broadly they were just focused about around you know what we were doing what is mineral exploration what is the little water project what is this thing that's going on in my backyard that's been happening since 2019 that we don't know about and so I walked away from that meeting with a real understanding that the La Plata project was better known to its investors than it was to its neighbors and to its community. And, you know, I set forth to fix that, to change that. And so Scott and I went back, and we had Allison in tow, and we began to develop our community relations plan and to implement her 12-step program. It started, of course, like she said, with identifying and mapping out who our neighbors were, who the key stakeholders were, and who we needed to develop relationships with. And then from there to go and meet people and have coffee, go introduce ourselves, show up in their spaces. at their community events. And then finally also develop our own space where folks could come and meet us. We ended up started this thing called an open house that we host twice a year. In addition to that, you know, it was important for us to be able to tell our story and to inform the community about what mineral exploration is and what specifically the water project was. So And finally, we needed a place for that stuff to sit, so we've got a project-specific website, LaPlataProject.com, and a place for people to go and get that information, and we also have info at LaPlataProject.com. And so fast forward through two years of that. We were back in Mancos for the third time, for our third time, hosting our own event and Mankus in April. And the vibe and the tone in Mankus is completely different these days. You know, we show up, and people still show up. We've got, I think we had 40-some people at our Mankus event, and they're asking real important questions. They're engaged with us, and they want to know specific details about our project. what I would say they do is they trust us now. They believe what we say, and they sit and listen to us. And the La Plata Project is an accepted community member of the Mankus community now.

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

That's, wow, what an interesting just journey of the first meeting that was held by the Mankus community to what you just ended on now. Excellent example. Beth, turning over to you, Maven Exploration. Catch us up on the origin story. Where did this idea come from? What was the genesis of Maven? Why did you have this vision? Why did you get us all in tow with Kelly Ward somewhere around here as well? Hello, Kelly. Peggy Bell said, we're doing this.

Beth Barodi, CEO

Yeah. I mean, as Alison mentioned, one of the companies that I started six years ago was called Femina Collective. And when Femina started, I was working as the VP of sustainability for New Gold. So a mid-tier gold producer in Canada, very similar to Alison, have a sustainability background. And I had a really hard time finding other women who were in their mid-30s who were holding these executive roles and were able to just connect and just build community and not need to do a lunch and learn, not need to do something from a professional development stance. And Femina was born. And for the first few years, it was really community focused. It was just about connecting, building that safety, building that belonging for women in mining. And quickly in 2022 and 2023, I was introduced to some of Canada's junior CEOs who were women. And they were often doing raises and they were often asking us, do you know anyone that would be interested in this project? Can you help us facilitate meetings? And one group in particular, they were a graphite company in Canada. They are a graphite company in Canada. The CEO at the time was a woman and she and I were looking for investors. And she said, we want someone unique. We want someone who's serious about investing in these projects. Can you help us tap on your network to bring people forward? We held lunch after lunch after lunch, as many people in this room probably know, that whole marathon of trying to secure investment for your project. And we were only talking to men. Now, that's not a bad thing. We're glad that there are men who are investing in this industry. But I remember after the last meeting, just looking at her and saying, where are the women? And why are women not investing in this industry? I myself, again, was a VP title at a gold company, making a fantastic compensation. And I had no idea that I was a qualified investor. And I had no idea that I had the opportunity to participate in private placements. And I went back to my CEO, who is someone I still dearly respect. and I said, what should I be investing in? What are you investing in? And his response to me was, oh, don't even bother.

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

It's too risky.

Beth Barodi, CEO

And I looked at him and I said, are you joking me? You are doing this. I should be able to do this. And I just need to learn and know what's happening. And so we opened this whole conversation about where are the women in the industry who are working in the industry, who are qualified investors, who are mitigating and identifying risk every single day around projects. And how do we get the conversation about them putting more capital into the industry. At the same time, all of the information about the great wealth transfer was starting to come out. And the fact that for the first time in history, we are going to see women own 50% of wealth in North America by 2035. So less than 10 years from now, we are going to see women have control over half of the wealth in our countries, both Canada and the U.S. and the U.K. and kind of the modern world. We need those women to know about mining. We can only talk about being cash strapped for so long without going and looking for where are new investors and how do we bring people in. So we started having these discussions at Femina. We started actually having meetings. I actually was introduced to MMG through Metallic Minerals through one of these meetings because we were able to see them present to us. And I think one of the interesting things that we started realizing right away was women think differently when it comes to investment. The end goal is the same. We all want to make money. We all want a great return on our investment, but the questions that women were asking were very, very different. It was about what does the community think? What are you doing about water? I think on that call, we had someone who was from the area around MMG and was like, there's a hiking path or things like that. Have you talked to the tourist boards? Have you done these sorts of things? And it was very different questions that we were asking. Now, in the background this whole time, if you know me, you know I am a visionary and I am a dreamer through and through. I kept saying, one day we're going to have a female-owned mind, one day we're going to do this as women, one day, one day, one day. And sure enough, last June, we had an opportunity come to us for someone who came and said, listen, I have some projects that I'd be interested in introducing to your group of women. Because now with Femina, we do have a full list of qualified female investors that we try and pair with projects as much as possible to get that capital moving. And every meeting that we have done, we have seen new capital come onto the stage from retail investors, which is pretty phenomenal. And it was this moment when this opportunity came to us. I remember looking at Peggy Bell, who worked at Femina with me and then now is one of the Maven co-founders. And I said, this is our opportunity to actually do this. We need to leap and we need to take the jump. We've got the backing from an investment perspective. We've got the know-how. And who else do we know that we can tap on to say, will you come and will you start this with us? Because we believe that if we could start a company, not necessarily, I mean, we wanted it to be founded by women, but we want it built for everyone. But we wanted it to show that we are going to take the right steps right away. We're going to look at the social piece. We're going to look at the environmental piece. We're going to look at why projects are solved. And we're going to try and do that better from the beginning. And so called a few people. Some people said no. Some people said you're totally crazy. You should not be doing this. And Kelly and Allison said yes. And the four of us mavens were found. I have to give credit to Kelly for the name mavens. It was on her tongue the entire time when we were thinking of a name. And we came out in January and said, we are going to do this. And we are going to come out as Canada's first fully female-founded mining company. The fact that we're in 2026 and that hasn't happened yet is a little mind-blowing to me. But hopefully we will have a lot of fast followers behind us. And we are going to show what happens when you start projects with people just as much as what the geology is underground. round. And I'm happy to say, and then I'll wrap it up to give it back to Alison, our investor base is 40% women. We closed our seed funding round higher than we expected in the spring. We closed it within two weeks. We have 40% of our investors are women, and 60% of our overall funding is from those women, with one of our investors just upping their investment, who is a woman, and coming on to support us. And we are only right now at the stage of project due diligence. So these are people who have signed on before we even really had anything because they believed in the vision and the mission of what Maven is trying to do.

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

There's one more statistic there though, how many, what's the percent, the percentage of people of the investor community who has never invested in mining?

Beth Barodi, CEO

50% of our investors, this is their first mining investment, first mining.

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

New capital, completely coming in. Phenomenal, thank you. Brian, back to you. So in this journey that you laid out of that first Mancus meeting, it was tense. The work that you and the team did to start understanding the neighbors, building the relationships to get to that more recent Mancus meeting where you're having these great conversations with neighbors. What have you learned in this process?

Brian Eisenbrunn, Other

I mean, I laid out what my theory should show, but practitioner on the ground what have been some of your learnings yeah thanks Allison I think I mean there's so many for one that you alluded to this being a career pivot for me as an accountant I think it was really difficult to actually go out and talk to people instead of looking at spreadsheets for one right but in all seriousness you know I think there are some some real key takeaways for this group that I can mention. And you kind of alluded to it already. You know, the first one for me is show up and listen first. I can't tell you how many times I sat down with someone or ran into someone and they had so much to tell me and so many things to give me. And simply sitting there and listening to them and making sure I understand them and heard them really calmed things and developed a relationship. And I think that we tried to show up a couple of times and inform people first before we actually listened to them and that didn't really work to develop the relationship. We had to learn to listen to them. The second thing that I learned that I really want this room to hear is every Every time we hesitated to communicate, that was a mistake. Every time. And we had reasons to hesitate, but there is a vacuum of information about your projects out there. There is a misunderstanding of information about your project out there. And that vacuum, that void will get filled with generally the worst case scenario or at a minimum, you know, misinformation. And so don't hesitate to communicate. And often, and this leads me to my third piece of feedback, often the reason we hesitate to communicate is because we don't know, right? We don't, there's a lot of uncertainty in the mineral exploration space specifically. So number three is, it's okay to say, I don't know. It's okay to show up and say, I don't have all the answers. At the La Plata Project, we don't know what a mine could look like in the La Plata Mountains. And it's okay for us to say that. We do need to approach with, we don't know what that mine can look like. But this is the exact work that we're doing to determine what it could look like if it could be feasible. So show up, say, I don't know, and this is how I'm going to find out. And then beyond that, this is how we're going to find out, and this is how we're going to tell you about that. This is how you're going to be informed about key project updates. So there is a way to say, I don't know. finally the last thing that that I'd like this room to hear from me is something that I learned along the way that I suppose I was a little surprised by it coming into to this role you know I think the hardest work that we've done at the La Plata project has actually been internal internal alignment is key it is so difficult to show up externally in the public if you don't have things organized, if you don't have a real good clear vision internally and a clear path and plan internally, it shows up externally. And so I would say that there is a real need and priority around having internal alignment amongst your team and within your projects.

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

Yeah, and on that last piece, I mean, I've had the pleasure of serving as advisor to the project and front row seats of both of these experiences to this project for the last couple of years. And, you know, Greg Johnson, he had to step away for another meeting this morning where we have Regina Malloy as part of the team. We have some of the broader investor and group team here. I mean, yes, Brian wears that title, external relations manager, But the whole team came together and realized we all have a part to play. And if you don't have that leadership coming up from top and having that cohesiveness that the team demonstrated, it's more difficult. So speaking to you, and a lot of you are the CEOs, are the investors, making sure that you are asking these questions, encouraging the team to come together with this alignment is critical, is critical. So thanks for that. Beth, you know, you came in, you described this incredible vision you had. You obviously wrote some other people along, myself and Kelly included. We have this incredible investor community at Maven. But now what? Take us through the Mavenway process that the team has been leading around due diligence, around finding a project. How is this different?

Beth Barodi, CEO

We started looking at projects almost immediately. once we hit the ground running and we at this point have done due diligence on close to 15, 12, 15 projects at this point. Our team is focused on Canada at the moment. We specifically decided that when we came out just because of the experience we all have there. It's a safe jurisdiction. Although there are challenges from a regulatory perspective, we know that at least those challenges are known and laid out. And so what we started right away was we said we are starting with people. We are starting with where are the people, what do we need to know, what are the environmental impacts, and are there fatal flaws right off the bat with some of them. And we can give examples of we said no to moving forward on projects that were very close to UNESCO heritage sites that we said that's not going to be us, we're not going to do that. We have said no to where we know there is going to be a First Nation, we're not going to get consent, we're going to say that that the project is not for them. And we currently are looking, we currently are in due diligence with a couple of projects at the moment. And one of the ones that I think shows how Maven operates is that anywhere in Canada that you are operating, you are operating on indigenous land. Anywhere you are in Canada, you need indigenous consent in order to move your project forward. Anyone who thinks in this day and age that you can skip that step and consultation is enough is going to have a hard reality to face when it comes to getting your permits and getting your project moving forward. And so we had identified through our team and through our geo team and through our Peggy, who's our COO, some claims that we were interested in that we had found. And we determined where they were situated and what traditional territories they were situated on. And the first thing we did was who do we know from this First Nation and who can we call? And thankfully, because we do have a very deep breadth of experience in Canada, we have a pretty good Rolodex on that side as well. And so we identified a person who we could call who was part of that First Nation. And I had a call with him and I said, hey, there are some claims in your traditional territory. They're not staked right now. They're open. They look kind of interesting to us. Here's what we're doing. We want to make sure that we're talking with you about this and that you are very involved in anything that we move forward. And I almost stunned him on the call. He went completely silent and he just stared at the camera. And then after a few seconds, he said, we have never had anyone come to us this early. Now on the flip side, I had been advised many times, never go to a First Nation without state's claims because they're going to stake it from under you and they're going to take it from under you and you don't want that. I'm sorry, but I think that that is absolutely not correct. I think they again are the land owners and the rights owners on that land and need to be involved in that conversation. And he immediately was like, here's who you're gonna need to talk to and let me coordinate all of these meetings for you. Here's on this side who you need to talk to, this side who you need to talk to, our land management person, this person, this person. He told me the whole scale of what their nation was going through, when elections were gonna be happening, when we could expect decisions, when we could be coming in. And it completely transformed the way we are looking at that project with going in and saying we're not doing this unless you give us permission to do this. And it was just one of those moments where we said it's going to be slower for us. Our investors know it's going to be slower for us. They're hoping it's going to be slower for us because they want us to do it right and they want to see their money grow and be able to get into projects that we wouldn't necessarily be able to get into otherwise. And so we are very, very intentional about doing above and below ground work at the same time. Those are both weighted the same way.

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

Those both have fatal flaws that are weighted the same way because we believe a project can't move forward unless you have both of those happening at the same time. one does not start without the other absolutely oh i'm so glad you already saw in the program that it is q a time so i was going to say with these two live case studies an on the ground approach for an existing exploration project and starting from the onset before even company creation of how do we look at above ground much differently than what we have been seeing in the industry i would love to move it for questions they have this big counter here i got about eight

Speaker 4

minutes and actually a gentleman over there if you don't mind i don't know how physically that okay there you go he's doing it are we good they're working let's try that okay frankly i'm such a loud mouth i don't even really need this but we'll go with it so it's a bit off you have talked about, which is over the course of my career, decades, I've seen mining companies deal with local communities about water. You know, it's often a concern. And so generally, it's been very well done. I have to say, sometimes there are problems, generally well done. There's a new industry, which is dealing with local communities about water, which is the AI data center industry. What lessons should they be taking from mining about dealing with this, because they seem to be doing it so badly.

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

Well, I cannot comment or speculate on another industry that hasn't been my personal experience. So I've got to give the data point. Two former colleagues of mine from Newmont just got good roles at two data center companies. So it gives me, honestly, as lead community relations or related roles. So it does give me great hope that the mining industry for me is leading, leading in this space for us many challenges that we have discussed this morning and many lessons learned that we are still learning you line honestly because I worked I did it my one year of abroad I call it my one year in renewables recently and honestly that I can comment on I saw things that the mining industry was talking about 20 years ago I'm like we've nailed this we are way past this I think the mining industry is really poised to connect with energy we connect with data centers it's all related because once that I'd love someone to tell me if this is right or wrong but I saw a stat that said to build one of these hyper campuses it takes a medium copper mine three to four solid months of production to just feed that data center construction mind blowing how connected we are and you're absolutely right we have a lot of lessons in the mining general mining exploration mining industry to share so thank you for that question we have time for a few others love to hear a little bit more about people's experiences as well yeah please in the back i'd just like to understand like if you're trying to build trust and you're an explorer that's going to sell to a developer that may sell to a producer

Brian Eisenbrunn, Other

how can you really develop deep trust when the next guy is going to do what he does i'm so tempted to just throw this to brian because i know he has the answer and then i'll follow up if if you'd like yeah for sure thanks uh we get that question all the time um you know why would i develop a relationship with you if it's not going to be you doing uh the development and the mining in the future um and it is a little bit of a difficult question to to respond to but But I think we approach that question the same way we approach the rest of our question or the rest of the project in our community relations work, which is to say that, you know, the relationships developed now will hold across the lifespan of this project. And that same idea of trust building is what any sort of operator or developer coming in is going to be looking for in the future. They want to know that there's a social pathway to develop their project when they come in, if they were to come in. And so those relationships are actually integral to the value of the project itself from that lens. as well.

Beth Barodi, CEO

Did you want to pop in as well? Yes, I wanted to add one thing on that because I feel like it's exactly where we are with the projects that we are looking at. And I think part of it is you also are setting the community up, the communities up for success to know what to ask in an ex-partner, to know what their participation is going to be, to know what their rights are as being part of this piece. And I think as Brian has really demonstrated with the La Plata project, that support and that trust that you build right from being the first one on the ground helps ease that every step of the way because they want to be part of the project. They want to know what's happening. They want to be able to help progress it. And I think overall within the industry right now, we've seen an evolution of what partnerships look like, how early they have to start, what's consultation versus consent, what's an agreement versus an impact benefit agreement. Like we've seen the evolution happen. And we know now because we've seen what happens when we don't put it in place that the earlier you start, the better. And it's you do the best you can with the control that you have for your project to ensure that you're setting it up for success. And if someone else comes in and they decide that they're going to blow all of those relationships up and they don't want to respect them, again, they're going to face some pretty hard challenges trying to move that project forward at that point. So it really is about setting them up for success, setting your communities up for success, and knowing that this is in the best interest of everyone moving forward if you want to see this project actually develop.

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

And I would just add, I've done a lot of due diligence over the years. And I'll tell you, it is so easy to go into a project opportunity when I can understand what the relationship is. It's beyond a dot on a map. They actually can spell out what their area of influence is, what their history of engagement. Oh, where did Trevor go? He has a wonderful software that tracks all of this relationship, and they can just hand that to me. And I can even go in the community, and they'll set up, they'll just talk to the community. And they will tell me the agreements will be there. There will be a certainty that otherwise you are just grasping at. Or even worse, when you do a public due diligence with public sources, that narrative is not controlled by the project or even really the community members, but some loud voices that are taking over that void. So doing this work sets your project up for that value and that certainty going forward. We have time for one more question. We have one over there. Thanks, Daniel.

Speaker 1

Great job to all three of you, very well-spoken and empowering. If we were interested in investing in Maven, is that possible?

Beth Barodi, CEO

Yes. I didn't tell him to ask that. We aren't currently in a round, but we are anticipating that our next round will open up early next year. So absolutely happy to discuss any of what that would look like. With anyone who wants to know, We would happily take your money.

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

But I will add caveat, if you don't mind me sharing. We were discussing yesterday at dinner.

Beth Barodi, CEO

We've actually said no. We do want investors aligned with our mission. So if you are looking to just pour cash into a project because the geology is good and you want a two-, three-year turnaround to get it sold to get it to someone else, we are probably not the bet for you. But if you are looking to see how mining can be done differently, how we can bring different voices to the table, how we can start this, you would be joining a pool of a good handful of other investors who have already said yes and who are already aligned and supported with us on that.

Allison, Analyst — Lead presenter and panel moderator

Well, thank you for that. Well, this has just been a load of fun this morning. Thank you again to Jessica and the organizers and for all of you for participating. Have a great summit.