Karen Chovan, Founder & CEO

Over the past 20 years, I have engaged with boards, innovation committees, major projects, and operations, to save millions of dollars while reducing risks to the environment, and increasing regulatory and community trust in their organizations.

I have strong skills in strategic, systems-based, and life-cycle thinking, and a passion for finding value-driven, sustainable solutions for unique environmental and mine waste management challenges. Through cross-disciplinary team engagement, I start with building common goals, facilitating trust and alignment, encouraging out-of-the-box thinking, and working collaboratively to find solutions and to advance change.

Trusted and recommended as a manager who can and has delivered results, with "a tenacity to overcome obstacles and facilitate finding the right solutions," I would hope you would view me as a go-to person to help solve your complex challenges and achieve transformational change.

But in choosing to work with me, I offer a little warning, because I have a passion for promoting positive change in mining, and I’m not afraid to raise my voice, be a little controversial, and poke people or organizations into taking action. Be ready for it!

Karen and I worked on 2 multibillion dollar company-critical projects necessary for keeping our doors open.

1. Our first project was at Syncrude Canada, a joint venture which includes 25% ownership by Imperial Oil. Karen defined the trusted strategic plan, helping us secure our budget with Senior Management. With 270,000 barrels/day of oil on the line, failure would have cost us billions. She got her hands dirty to go into the field and execute on the plan until we succeeded!

2. In our second project, we supported the largest mining operation of Cameco worth $400 Million dollars annually. Karen and I secured regulatory agencies trust and approval for licensing needed to safely continue our operations.

Karen’s greatest strengths were in her ability to leave no stone unturned to show due diligence for trusted research. Karen’s genuine care for the environment shows at every level!

She is passionate, and has an incredible ability to logically put together the trusted plan for Senior Management to easily approve projects. Extremely organized, I can always trust her management of a project.
— Director, Operations

COLLABORATIONS & CONTRIBUTIONS

“I’ve personally always been interested in helping to educate our next generation of leaders about the particulars of what can be done, and is being done, responsibly and sustainably within mining. Over the past several years, I’ve volunteered ~25% of my time to supporting industry associations and committees to raise awareness about the great things happening in mining, to offer insights about practices and designs needing improvement, and to help educate our industry members about sustainable mining practices as well.”

Karen Chovan, CEO & Founder

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I’m currently the Chair of the Environmental and Social Responsibility Society of our national mining association, Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum (CIM). In this role, I’ve lead the coordination and design of technical content we offer through webinars, workshops, dialogue sessions, and the annual convention. This involves a lot of planning with our team, other societies, and external collaborators to bring this together.

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I was on the Board of Directors for Women in Mining Women in Nuclear Saskatchewan, Inc. for 2 years, supporting the coordination of the annual conference and webinars in earlier years as well. With this group of women leaders, we engaged women in industry, providing both a support network and learning opportunities to women advance in their roles.

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To help engage our next professional generation, I’ve worked with various engineering professors and industry network organizers to speak at the University of Saskatchewan annually, playing the role of sessional lecturer, workshop facilitator, project team mentor, and in project management courses, as well as on various industry expert panels.

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At a junior level, and when I have the chance, I can also be found helping out with bringing greater education about mining into our elementary school programs. My most recent contributions involved working with the Girls in the Classroom initiative, which is designed to both inform about mining, but also highlight women working in industry and STEM roles.

Programs & Organizational Change

For a number of years, I focused on sustainability and organizational change, transitioning an international company into a state of proactive environmental risk management and performance improvements. 

Projects

My career has taken me through various roles within the extractives industry, with a heavy focus on managing and executing projects involving the characterization tailings and mine wastes and plume migration, and mitigation of environmental risks and opportunities.