Full Name: John Paul Hunt

Position: Senior exploration geologist and Johannesburg branch manager of SRK Exploration Services

Main Activity of the Company: Exploration services, mineral targeting and geological consulting

Date and Place of Birth: March 6, 1974, Saskatoon, Canada

Education: MSc (economic geology), University of the Witwatersrand (Wits); graduate diploma in engineering (resource evaluation), Wits; citation programme in applied geostatistics, University of Alberta; currently a PhD candidate at Wits

First Job: Soil-sampling campaign outside Groblersdal, Mpumalanga, for Bushveld platinum-group elements and base metals

Career History Prior to Current Position: Includes Tati Nickel, Botswana; Nkomati Nickel, South Africa; greenfield nickel exploration in Burundi; greenfield exploration in Lapland, Finland; founder of First Drill, an exploration drilling company; and the Council for Geoscience, where I was a specialist scientist

Size of First Pay Packet: R2 500 a month

First Job with Present Group: Due diligence for a tanzanite mine

Number of People under Your Leadership: One to five

Management Style: Results-based and strategic

Personal Best Achievement: My seventy-fifth visited country; driving across Asia in a 1 000 cc car; winning Battle of the Bands; South African National Gridiron Football Selection for three years

Professional Best Achievement: Visiting every major nickel sulphide deposit in the world to develop expertise; a highgrade magmatic sulphide discovery in Burundi

Person Who Has Had the Biggest Influence on Your Life: Indiana Jones

Person Who Has Had the Biggest Influence on Your Career: Professor Laurence J Robb, for opening the economic geology door

Person You Would Most Like to Meet: Herodotus, to go over some of his facts

Businessperson Who Has Impressed You Most: Elon Musk, for being innovative, pioneering and future looking

Philosophy of Life: To discover something new, do not take the well-travelled path

Biggest Ever Opportunity: Working as a research volunteer on Aldabra Island, Seychelles

Biggest Ever Disappointment: Buying Bitcoin the night before it crashed; not being selected for the NASA JPL Internship during my Vredefort studies

Hope for the Future: That the world moves towards decision- making based on balance of fact and substantiated, defensible information

Favourite Reading: Nonfiction on decision-making and heuristics; history; Jared Diamond; Niall Ferguson; Nicholas Taleb; Richard Dawkins

Favourite TV Programme: The Expanse; Battlestar Galactica; Firefly

Favourite Food/Drink: Tapas; meze; tacos

Favourite Music: Sibelius; Puccini; Verdi; Slugs of War

Favourite Sport: World Cup competitions; snowboarding

Favourite Website: boardgamesgeek.com

Hobbies: Exploring new countries and cultures; boardgames; coin-collecting; bird-spotting

Car: White sports utility vehicle (safety first)

Pets: Sulphide specimens from around the world

Miscellaneous Dislikes: TV advertising and other forms of mind control

Favourite Other South African Company: SRK Consulting (South Africa)

Favourite Foreign Company: Space-X

Clubs: Geological Society of South Africa (meetings committee); Geostatistical Association of South Africa (former president); Society of Economic Geologists; SA Gamers