Mining Indaba review
Indaba returns
to its glory
The opening and welcome at the 2019 Investing in African Mining Indaba.
The annual Investing in African Mining Indaba has been going on for a
quarter of a century and 2019 looks to be the best year yet, writes Dineo Phoshoko.
M
anaging director Alex Grose
and director of content Harry
Chapman spoke to African
Mining to discuss the conference’s shift in
direction over the past two years.
Two years ago, Mining Indaba
management realised that the conference
could have been better than what it was
and that all the right people were not
attending the conferencing. “It’s called
Investing in African Mining Indaba, so
it has to be about investors and mining
companies,” explained Grose. To change
this, the team went back to the drawing
board and brainstormed ideas on how
22 AFRICAN MINING MARCH - APRIL 2019
to make the conference attractive to
investors again.
Chapman said the team did extensive research
to identify which areas needed critical
attention, to establish what exactly needed
to change. According to Chapman, research
included a lot of engagement with the markets
and having meetings with over 350 people,
of which 50% were face-to-face. The whole
objective of undertaking such research was to
try and identify the type of content delegates
wanted to see at Mining Indaba. In addition,
the organisers were trying to understand the
challenges that the mining industry is faced
with, and possible solutions.
Getting around the challenges
Mining Indaba is the world’s largest
mining investment conference and
therefore attracts a lot of attention. Over
the years, there was always the potential
threat of people piggybacking on the
conference. There have been instances of
people taking advantage of the investor
hub that comes with Mining Indaba,
where they would network with investors
or delegates outside of the conference —
without actually attending the conference.
“All the best events do have that. They do
have an impact on everything around them,”
Chapman explained. Having said that, he
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