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Mark Davis

28th April 2017

By: Ilan Solomons

Creamer Media Staff Writer

     

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Full Name: Mark Rodney Davis

Position: CEO of Master Blaster

Main Activity of the Company: Offering innovative, alternative explosives solutions to the mining industry

Date and Place of Birth: November 12, 1957, Kitwe, Zambia

Education: Some schooling, some hockey, some army, some mining, lots of explosives engineering and then 20-odd years of continuous learning, doing what I love

First Job: Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe

Size of First Pay Packet: Far too little, I am sure

Management Style: I do not know; you would have to ask my partners

Personal Best Achievement: Inventing what is still the safest shock tube initiation system in the world and then passing the 100-million holes blasted mark

Person Who Has Had the Biggest Influence on Your Life: It would have to be my old man: father, mate, miner and Springbok hockey player

People Who Has Had the Biggest Influence on Your Career: Drew Jarvis, Peter Wentworth, Rob Lindsay, my current partners (Brian Fitzgerald and Jeff Fenwick) and all the ‘haters’ who helped me to get better at my job

Person You Would Most Like to Meet: Harry Oppenheimer

Businessperson Who Has Impressed You Most: Anyone who started with nothing and still managed to do what is right for his or her family, mates and the industry in which he or she works

Philosophy of Life: Family first, mates second, third and fourth, and “you don’t have to do what the others do to succeed”

Biggest Ever Opportunity: Starting Master Blaster with two of my best mates, Brian Fitzgerald and Jeff Fenwick

Biggest Ever Disappointment: The continuous tactics employed by the supposed doyens of the South African explosives industry in attempting to maintain market share ‘at any cost’, despite the consequences to the underground work

Hope for the Future: That South Africa’s mining executives finally accept that resistance to change is their biggest impediment to success and realise that there are already options out there to make continuous mining a reality – now

Favourite Reading: Newspapers

Favourite TV Programme: Vikings or Banshee

Favourite Food/Drink: Because my office is basically my car, I tend to focus on all the healthy options: pies, sausage rolls and chocolate, washed down with a Diet Coke

Favourite Music: Anything where the singer’s voice sounds like his or her vocal chords have been sand-papered

Favourite Sport: International rugby

Hobbies: Watching all sport and news on television. I was going to say gym and mountain biking, but you have a picture of me – and it is my firm belief that men should not wear Lycra

Car: Lexus LS 460, eight years old and over 300 000 km, so not as larney as you think

Pets: My wife’s three cats – by executive order

Miscellaneous Dislikes: Donald Trump; bullying and lying, or, as I said, Donald Trump

Married: To Merrill, for 38 years

Children: Two of my best mates, Dustin, 33; Cassandra, 28

Clubs: Left them all behind in Zimbabwe, after somebody asked me, not so politely, to vacate my farm, so a friend of his who lives in the UK could take it over. This is a very small exclusive club, which, quite frankly, I wish I was not part of

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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