THE ROLE IN ONE SENTENCE

You will become the financial brain of an emerging mining category ; building the project models, business-model variants, and capex/opex optimization engines that turn precision extraction from a technology story into an investable asset class.

Why This Role Exists

Surgical mining ; the precision, low-disturbance extraction of mineralized rock using advanced sensing, robotics, and electrified equipment ; is a category in formation. The technology works. The business case does not yet have a financial language. Three things are missing in the market today:

•   Reusable project economics models that handle the unique cost structures of surgical extraction (lower waste haulage, higher per-meter capex, dramatically different reclamation curves, modular fleet utilization).

•   A library of validated business-model variants ; owner-operator, Mining-as-a-Service (MaaS), tolling, streaming, JV/earn-in, equity-for-extraction, and resource-backed financing ; each with defensible economics and term-sheet templates.

•   Forecasting frameworks that integrate geological uncertainty, commodity scenarios, and operational ramp curves into a single, board-grade decision tool.

You build all three. The output of your work directly shapes how operators, juniors, majors, and capital allocators underwrite this category.

What You'll Own

1. Surgical Mining Project Model (SMPM)

•   Build and maintain a probabilistic project economics model ; scoping through definitive feasibility study (PEA / PFS / FS) ; for surgical mining projects across commodities (Au, Cu, Ni, Li, REE, critical minerals).

•   Integrate Monte Carlo simulation for grade-tonnage uncertainty, recovery curves, throughput ramp, and commodity price scenarios. Outputs: NPV, IRR, payback, AISC, sensitivity tornado, P10/P50/P90 distributions.

•   Maintain alignment with CIM, JORC, and SK-1300 reporting standards so models are credible to investment committees and technical reviewers.

2. Business Model Library

Architect, model, and stress-test the full set of surgical mining commercial structures. For each, you produce a defensible economic model, a term-sheet template, and a one-page comparison view:

Business Model: Owner-Operator

Core Mechanic: Operator owns deposit and equipment; full capex/opex on balance sheet.

Primary Capital Source: Equity + debt

Mining-as-a-Service (MaaS)

Core Mechanic: Propel/operator provides equipment + crew under per-ton or per-oz service fee.

Primary Capital Source: Service revenue, customer balance sheet

Tolling

Core Mechanic: Process customer-owned ore for a per-tonne fee; no resource exposure.

Primary Capital Source: Customer capex

Streaming / Royalty

Core Mechanic: Upfront capital in exchange for % of future production at fixed or discounted price.

Primary Capital Source: Streaming company

JV / Earn-In

Core Mechanic: Stage-gated equity earned via milestone-based capex commitments.

Primary Capital Source: JV partner

Equity-for-Extraction

Core Mechanic: Resource owner contributes deposit; operator contributes capex + tech for shared equity.

Primary Capital Source: Co-investment

Equipment-as-a-Service

Core Mechanic: Lease surgical fleet on monthly subscription with utilization floor.

Primary Capital Source: Equipment financiers

Resource-Backed Financing

Core Mechanic: Debt facility secured against measured & indicated resources.

Primary Capital Source: Specialty mining lenders

3. Capex & Opex Optimization Engine

•   Decompose capex into modular building blocks: surgical drill platforms, sensing arrays, electrified haulage, modular processing, autonomous ops layer. Quantify cost-down curves with scale and fleet utilization.

•   Model opex on a first-principles basis: energy (kWh/t), consumables (drill steel, bits, water), labor (hourly + crew structure), maintenance (MTBF-driven), reclamation accrual (per disturbed hectare). Benchmark against conventional open-pit and underground baselines.

•   Run optimization studies: fleet size vs. throughput, electrification capex premium vs. lifecycle opex savings, automation penetration vs. labor cost, modular vs. fixed processing.

•   Translate findings into go/no-go thresholds: minimum grade × tonnage × commodity price triplet that yields ≥20% IRR for each business-model variant.

4. Forecasting & Strategic Decision Support

•   Build the commodity scenario engine: forward curves, supply/demand modeling, byproduct credit forecasting, FX assumptions. Refreshed quarterly.

•   Stand up the investor-grade output pack: one-pagers, term sheets, sensitivity decks, and a board-ready economics dashboard updated in real time.

•   Partner with engineering, geostatistics, and BD to ensure every model is technically defensible and commercially compelling.

•   Brief CEO, CEO Council, and prospective investors / partners on project-level and portfolio-level economics. Be the person in the room who knows the numbers cold.

What "Unparalleled" Looks Like

This is not an FP&A role. It is a category-defining seat. You will be the person we point to when investors ask, "who built that model?" The bar is unambiguous:

•   Your models survive contact with a CFA-level investment committee, an SK-1300 / NI 43-101 Qualified Person review, and an operator with 20 years of plant experience ; in the same week.

•   You can take a deposit description, a commodity outlook, and a customer's strategic posture, and walk out within 72 hours with three structured deal options, each modeled and term-sheeted.

•   You compress the time-from-question-to-board-grade-answer from weeks to days, without losing rigor.

•   You write models that other people can extend without breaking them. Documentation, version control, and assumption registers are table stakes.

Required Qualifications

•   7+ years in mining finance: investment banking (mining/metals coverage), equity research (mining), streaming/royalty company, mining-focused private equity, or as a corporate development / project finance lead inside a producing miner.

•   Deep, demonstrable fluency in technical economic studies (scoping, PEA, PFS, FS) including familiarity with reporting standards (CIM, JORC, SK-1300, NI 43-101).

•   Expert-level financial modeling: Excel power user (no avoidance of dynamic arrays, Power Query, or Monte Carlo via @RISK / Crystal Ball / Python), plus working Python (pandas, numpy, scipy) for probabilistic and sensitivity work.

•   Track record of structuring or analyzing at least three of: streaming/royalty deals, project finance facilities, JV / earn-in agreements, off-take contracts, or service-revenue commercial models.

•   Crisp written and verbal communication. You can defend a 50-tab model in a board meeting and reduce it to a one-paragraph memo on the same day.

Preferred ; Any One of These Sets You Apart

•   Mining engineering or geological engineering degree alongside an MBA / CFA / CPA / MFE.

•   Direct experience at a streaming/royalty company (Wheaton, Franco-Nevada, Royal Gold, Triple Flag, Sandstorm, Osisko Gold Royalties) or specialty mining lender (Sprott, Orion, Appian).

•   Built or co-built the economic case for a precision, narrow-vein, in-situ, or block-cave operation.

•   Experience modeling electrified / battery-electric mining fleets and their TCO vs. diesel baselines.

•   Comfort presenting to junior boards, majors' corp dev teams, and Tier-1 LPs.

First 90 Days |  Outcomes

Window

Outcome Owned

Day 30

v1.0 Surgical Mining Project Model published. Validated against one live deposit. Assumption register signed off by engineering + geostatistics.

Day 60

Business Model Library at v1: four of eight models fully built with term-sheet templates and sensitivity views. Capex/opex optimization engine instrumented against a real fleet configuration.

Day 90

Two prospective deals modeled end-to-end. One board-grade economics briefing delivered to CEO Council. A defensible, repeatable diligence package ready to deploy on the next live opportunity.