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