Vahid Haydari is a mining engineer with more than 20 years' experience in construction, engineering, consulting and mining (open cut and underground). He was previously with Atlas Iron as general manager of operations and has worked for mining and mining services companies. Mr Haydari graduated from Federation University holding a Bachelor of Mining Engineering (honours) and Bachelor of Management (major in Business Management and Human Resource Management and minor in Marketing). He holds a WA First Class Mine Managers certificate of competency, is an AUSIMM Chartered Professional MAUSIMM(CP) and a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland. He is a Graduate of INSEAD (Advanced Management Program) and the Institute of Company Directors, and a Member of the Risk Management Institution of Australasia. Mr Haydari was appointed chief operating officer of Swick Mining Services from September 2011 and chief executive from January 2012.