Full Name: Trevor Robert Garden

Position: CEO of Evolve Mining and new business development executive of AMC

Main Activity of the Companies: Designing for the lowest, sustainable cost per tonne (Evolve Mining) and then mining at a guaranteed cost per tonne (AMC)

Date and Place of Birth: June 30, 1976, Harare, Zimbabwe

Education: Hillview, Blantyre, Malawi; Northside Primary, Gaborone, Botswana; matric, Balgowan High School, KwaZulu-Natal; MDP and LDP, Gordon Institute of Business Science; 6 Sigma Black Belt (cum laude in the ‘Path Less Travelled’ module)

First Job: Mechanic at my father’s mining and construction equipment company in Botswana

Size of First Pay Packet: 300 pula a month

Value of Assets under Your Control: Priceless – it is difficult to put a price to the intellectual property of everyone helping to dramatically lower our customers’ cost per tonne

Number of People: Evolve Mining – one partner and about 20 strategic partners; AMC – 500 people

Management Style: Firm, but empowering

Personal Best Achievement: Getting married and becoming a father

Person Who Has Had the Biggest Influence on Your Life: Stephen Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Person Who Has Had the Biggest Influence on Your Career: Shane Fitzpatrick, former mining director of Barloworld Equipment

Person You Would Most Like to Meet: Ivan Glasenberg

Businessperson Who Has Impressed You Most: Xi Jinping and the Chinese leadership over the past 30 years

Philosophy of Life: Do it properly, or don’t do it

Biggest Ever Opportunity: Helping to grow AMC and developing Evolve Mining

Biggest Ever Disappointment: Being unable to advance in-pit crushing/surface mining and conveying in opencast mining while working in a corporate environment with conflicting interests

Hope for the Future: That our collective skills in AMC and Evolve Mining be put to good use to create a more sustainable Africa for Africans through mining and industrialisation

Favourite Reading: Understanding the real reasons why things are the way they are in Africa, global history, innovation

Favourite TV Programme: I do not watch television

Favourite Food/Drink: The food that I grow in my own garden and the drinks that I make out of what I would have grown in my own garden

Favourite Music: Kongos, the South African Canadian second-generation band

Favourite Sport: Sea kayaking, archery

Hobbies: Gardening, kayaking

Car: Subaru

Pets: Two dachshunds

Miscellaneous Dislikes: Doing the wrong things for the right reasons, or doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons – in short, political nonsense in companies and countries

Married: To Lianna (née Conidaris)

Children: Demi, 11; Mikayla, 9

Clubs: None