Team

Board

Richard Morecombe

Founder & Chairman

A serial entrepreneur and investor, Richard is Chairman of Northern Lithium having founded the company in 2017 and is the largest shareholder.

Richard has 35 years of experience in Mid and Small Cap UK broking, having originally qualified as a Chartered Accountant. He co-founded in 2011 and was CEO of Whitman Howard, a boutique UK broker, until it was acquired and integrated with Panmure Gordon in 2020 where Richard is now President and Head of Equities. He also founded Whitman Asset Management.

One of the original founders of Numis, Richard spent ten years there from 1998 to 2008, during which period the market cap grew from £10m to £400m and he held roles including Head of UK Equities, responsible for the entire Secondary business, as well as launching and having responsibility for Numis’ UK to US business based in New York.

Nick Pople

Managing Director & Exco

Nick is Managing Director of Northern Lithium having joined the company in July 2020.

Nick has over 30 years investment, advisory, fundraising, project and direct corporate development experience, including 25 years specialist focus on sustainability (resource efficiency, sustainable development and sustainable technology). Nick has a strong investment track record across 25 sustainable companies since 1997.

Nick is also a director of Green at Heart, a specialist sustainable investment consultancy established in 2017. He joined the Earth Capital Group in 2014 and was CIO of Earth Capital Asia Ltd in Hong Kong until 2019. Prior to that, Nick was co-founder of Ludgate Investments in 2000 and CEO from 2006. Nick helped establish Ludgate’s reputation as a leading European venture capital and private equity investor in resource efficiency, and launched the Ludgate Environmental Fund on AIM in 2007. Before Ludgate, Nick spent 8 years within the Barclays Bank Group both in London and Hong Kong focused on project, structured and corporate finance across energy, infrastructure and transportation.

Roger Bade

Technical Director & Exco

Roger Bade is Northern Lithium Ltd’s Technical Director and an original founder of the Northern Pennine Orefield project. Roger established the basis of a viable lithium extraction project in the area, from potentially economic concentrations of lithium in saline fluids recorded at the Eastgate Geothermal Borehole site. Roger has a first class honours degree in Mining from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London and in 1983 received the British Mining Student’s Prize. His first work vacation was spent with Swiss Aluminium Mining UK (SAMUK) at their Cambokeels fluorspar mine in Eastgate, County Durham. Post-graduation, Roger then worked as an Investment Analyst and Fund Manager for 23 years for a major City of London based Insurance group. He subsequently became a Mining Analyst for a Docklands based private client stockbroker and spent almost ten years at a West End institutional Investment Bank prior to commencing full time with Northern Lithium.

Ed Farquhar

Non-Exec Director

Ed has been a Non-Executive Director of Northern Lithium since 2021.

Ed is co-founder and partner of Percipient Capital, a leading independent provider of private equity and venture capital to small and medium sized businesses. He has invaluable experience in guiding, assessing and working with management teams of SMEs.

Ed was previously a founder and former director of Numis Securities, heading the Equity Capital Markets team. He gained 15 years City experience specialising in SMEs and was involved in numerous IPOs and secondary financings for small cap businesses. Ed has an intimate working knowledge of AIM and public markets and has strong and longstanding relationships with many of the leading broking firms.

Executive Team

Chris Hird

Strategy, Planning, Operations & Exco

Chris has over 25 year’s experience across the extractive and industrial sectors nationally and internationally. His responsibilities and remit have included the technical and commercial aspects of businesses development, working in companies ranging from small scale start-ups to large industrial corporates and delivering projects from concept to completion. He has a comprehensive understanding of the onshore energy and mineral sector in the UK, having worked with the British Government, devolved nations, regulators and local communities to develop domestic resources. A native of Australia, Chris has called the UK home for over 20 years.

Simon Rolfe

Finance & Exco

Simon is a commercially minded, technically astute & results driven Finance Professional with a wealth of core finance, project management & product development skills accumulated from 10 years in Audit Practice at manager level and over 12 years in the Investment Banking industry as a Project Manager & Front Office Product Development lead in London, Mumbai & New York.

Following on from this, Simon is now working as a freelance Financial Consultant for a number of small and medium sized enterprises.

Paul Calladine

Legal Counsel & Exco

35 plus years’ experience in the minerals extractive industries, acquiring freehold and
leasehold interests in surface and underground minerals working, acquiring necessary rights, licences, and relevant permits.

Advisers

Bruce Galliford

Sustainability, Energy & Offtake

Bruce is a seasoned entrepreneur and former CEO of RAW Charging, a UK-based electric vehicle charging company he co-founded in 2018 after earlier ventures including iCollector PLC and RAW Energy. Beginning his career in finance at Rothschild Asset Management, he went on to build a track record of scaling innovative businesses. At RAW Charging, Bruce spearheaded partnerships with major property owners such as Greene King, Aviva, and McArthurGlen to expand EV infrastructure nationwide, driven by his vision of creating a trusted, ubiquitous charging network. Stepping down as CEO in 2023, he supported the transition to new leadership while continuing to influence the sustainable energy and infrastructure space.

Richard Barton

Land

Richard has spent over 30 years advising on complex corporate, financial and crisis communications issues across Asia, the UK and Europe. His firm, RB Advisors, acts for listed and private companies, financial and professional services firms, hedge funds and family offices, as well as private equity and venture capital funds and their portfolio companies. He has advised on the communications issues around fundraisings, M&A and restructurings totalling more than US$300 billion. Richard previously held senior consulting and management positions in a number of global strategic communications firms.