George Jones awarded governance role

Veteran mining identity George Jones was last night awarded the 2011 Gold Medal Award for Western Australia by the Australian Institute of Company Directors, recognising his role as a corporate leader, notably at the time of the Sundance Resources disaster.

Mr Jones, who chairs Gindalbie Metals and is well known for his charity work at Parkerville Children and Youth Care and the Ear Science Institute, headed an emergency strategic advisory team for Sundance after the entire board was killed in a plane crash in Africa last year.

The move to take the reins of the company when all the officers of the company and the representative of its only substantial shareholder had been killed was viewed as considerably risky because Mr Jones and two other emergency advisers, lawyer Michael Blakiston and investment banker Adam Rankine-Wilson, who joined him were effectively acting as directors without the usual legal protections board members received for their actions.

Mr Jones is currently chairman of Sundance.

Speaking after he was honoured at the AICD’s Winter Dinner and 21^st anniversary celebrations, Mr Jones said he had witnessed the collapse of the Independence Resources in the late 1980s,, when its board was wiped out in a light plane accident, and felt he had to act in the Sundance case to preserve jobs, assets and shareholder value.