James Campbell is somewhat of a celebrity in the world of geology, geophysics and diamonds. In Southern Africa, he is a legend in the diamond exploration and diamond mine development world. He is a graduate of the illustrious Imperial College in London with a degree in Mining Exploration and Geology. He did his honours project on what was to become the Venetia Mine while it was still an exploration project. This laid the foundation for him to go to work at DeBeers after his graduation.
Post university he was schooled in the big leagues within DeBeers, where he began a career which has been regularly punctuated by massive achievements. He worked at DeBeers for 21 years and rose to the position of General Manager in charge of Advanced Exploration and DeBeers Laboratories around the World. During his stint at DeBeers, he even worked as Nikki Oppenheimer’s personal assistant for several years.
He eventually launched into a career outside of DeBeers and successfully ran several prominent diamond junior companies, starting with African Diamonds and the development of the Karowe mine...
On the Mat Roux and Sond Diamond Mine, after the shutdown caused by the covid 19 pandemic, operations are finally restarting. The rich high quality Manganese deposits to the South of the mine have a contractor on site and they are in the process of setting up and soon to increase production to a sustainable exportable quantity of high grade manganese.
The Dredger Project has gone from an idea to actual working model in 5 years. It has not only made previous technically and logistically difficult virgin diamond gravels on the mine, to now be accessible, but to also be able to recover the diamonds without the use of any chemicals except electricity, and replacing a previous high diesel consuming industry with a complete electricity driven option that could run off a mini-solar grid on the mine. The crowd funding capital raise for Diamond Lakes entails developing a larger, more efficient dredger to mine the base of the Legendary Pienaars Pothole.
This project is being developed as a unique model based on socially sound principles that will empower and benefit the local community by funding education and social development and generate revenue for the local communities as well as the mines equity holders.
African Diamonds and Gold
Gold and Diamonds from Africa have for centuries enormously benefited a small elite outside of Africa; often through the detriment of the continent, its people, land, animals and water. We have a company policy to adhere strictly to the social and ethical principles expected of Impact investing. One fundamental priority of the group and company is capitalizing on and investing in Africa’s most valuable resource- It’s youth!!
We intend on leveraging mining investment capital to do two things; the first to generate shareholder and investor revenue using sustainable and environmentally sound mining operations and the second is to use capital income from mining to subsidize student education throughout Southern and Eastern Africa. We aim to show that it can be done and then to challenge every corporate to do the same. The financing of Africa’s youth is expected to deliver far bigger returns than an investment in gold or diamonds. We intend investing in all three, gold, diamonds and Africa’s youth.
Learn MoreMeet Our Founder
Navin is a Medical Doctor, Lawyer and entrepreneur. He has been involved in the Lichtenburg Projects as a Director of all three mines since 2006. He works as a GP and Emergency Medicine Consultant in Queensland Australia and does specialized medicolegal consulting to health professional on a global platform. He is involved in medical education with an emphasis on medico-legal issues.
Meet Our Ops Manager and Director Representative
Theo Roux is the Operations Manager and Director Representative on all 3 mines.