The founding directors of HyProMag Ltd include Professor Emeritus Rex Harris (former head of the MMG) Professor Allan Walton (current head of the MMG) and two Honorary Fellows, Dr John Speight and Mr David Kennedy. They are all leading world experts in the field of rare earth magnetic materials, alloys and hydrogen technology, and have significant industry experience.
The founding directors of HyProMag Ltd include Professor Emeritus Rex Harris (former head of the MMG) Professor Allan Walton (current head of the MMG) and two Honorary Fellows, Dr John Speight and Mr David Kennedy. They are all leading world experts in the field of rare earth magnetic materials, alloys and hydrogen technology, and have significant industry experience.
David Kennedy BSc, CEng Founding Director
Emeritus Professor
Rex Harris BSc, PhD, DSc, FREng Founding Director
Dr John Speight BSc, PhD Founding Director
Professor Allan Walton BSc, PhD Founding Director
Will Dawes
BSc
Director
Nick Mann
B.Eng
Operations General Manager
Rob Arnold
Metallurgist
David Kennedy
BSC, CENG, Founding Director
David Kennedy is a metallurgist with extensive experience in the rare earth supply chain. He previously founded and owned Less Common Metals (LCM) who produce rare earth alloys. He was also formerly a director of Great Western Minerals. David has extensive experience in separation of rare earth elements and in alloy processing. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham in the Magnetic Materials Group.
emeritus professor
Rex Harris
BSC, PHD, DSC, FRENG, Founding Director
Professor Rex Harris is a materials scientist who has been at the forefront of research into processing of permanent magnets for over 40 years. He pioneered the use of hydrogen for processing of rare earth magnets and started the recycling activity for NdFeB magnets at the University of Birmingham. He developed the hydrogen decrepitation process which is used worldwide for NdFeB magnet manufacture. Rex has held many prestigious roles including head of school in Metallurgy and Materials at the University of Birmingham, Visiting Professor at IFW Dresden (Germany), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) and Josef Stefan Institute (Slovenia), and chair of the UK Magnetics Society.
DR John Speight
BSC, PHD, Founding Director
Following his B.Sc and PhD studies in the Department of Physical Metallurgy at the University of Birmingham, John Speight worked in the USA at the California Institute of Technology and Bell Laboratories. For over 20 years he held a variety of senior scientific positions at BT Research Laboratories culminating in being head of silicon integrated circuit technology. For 6 years he was Director of Manufacturing at BT&D, a BT/Dupont joint venture which became the world’s first large scale manufacturer of long wavelength semiconductor lasers. Since 1998 he has been an Honorary Research Fellow in the Magnetic Materials Group. In recent years John has been mapping supply chains for rare earth magnets.
Professor Allan Walton
BSC, PHD, Founding Director
Dr Walton is a Professor of Critical and Magnetic Materials. He is head of the Magnetic Materials Group (MMG) at the University of Birmingham and the former head of the UK Magnetics Society. Over the last ten years he has been developing technologies to sense, sort and extract rare earth magnets from end of life products. He has developed these technologies up to pilot scale within the University of Birmingham and it is these technologies which will be taken to a commercial scale by Hypromag.
Will Dawes
BSc, Director
William Dawes is a founding Director and CEO of AIM/TSXV listed Mkango Resources, and a Director of LeoMinEx and HyProMag. He has over 25 years’ experience in exploration, business development and investment banking. Having trained as a geologist in South Africa, he worked as a mining analyst based in London and then for Rio Tinto’s exploration division. Subsequently, he gained significant global mining transaction experience at Robert Fleming & Co, Chase Manhattan Bank and JPMorgan. He holds a BSc Geology from Bristol University and MSC Mineral Exploration with distinction from Royal School of Mines, Imperial College.
Nick Mann
B.Eng, Operations General Manager
Nick Mann B.Eng is a materials scientist with a history of non-ferrous production control and management roles. He has experience of processing reclaimed metallic scrap into value added end product as well as a variety of connections through Europe in metals processing. He gained his B.Eng at the University of Birmingham, School of Metallurgy and Materials.
Rob Arnold
Metallurgist
Rob Arnold has an MEng in Nuclear Engineering and is currently finalising a PhD in magnetostrictive materials. His background is in experimental science, having performed studies of processing parameters and fabrication methods of rare-earth transition metal magnets. Mr Arnold has a wide array of training, particularly for use on equipment focused on fabrication and characterisation of samples, while also being versed in statistical and critical analysis.
