Yamana Gold Appoints Female Directors to All-Male Board

Yamana appointed Christiane Bergevin and Jane Sadowsky as directors, the Toronto-based company said in a statement today. Their addition “reflects the board’s focus on broadening diversification,” the company said.

The Canadian government is seeking to increase the representation of women on boards to 30 percent within five years, Kellie Leitch, the minister for women’s issues, said last month. Women account for 11 percent of the boards of the 235 companies in the Standard & Poors/Toronto Stock Exchange Composite Index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Yamana follows moves by other mining companies to increase female board representation. Glencore Plc, which was the last company left on the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index with an all-male board, in June appointed mining executive Patrice Merrin as a director. Barrick Gold Corp., the largest gold producer, added a second female director in April.

First Quantum Minerals Ltd., based in Vancouver, is the largest Canadian mining company without a woman on its board, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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Link to Yamana’s press release

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Bios
Ms. Bergevin currently serves as EVP Partnerships and Business Development, Office of the President at Desjardins Group (“Desjardins”) based in Montreal, Quebec. Prior to joining Desjardins in 2009, Ms. Bergevin was appointed Senior VP and General Manager, Corporate Projects, with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. after having held increasingly senior executive finance positions with SNC-Lavalin subsidiaries over an 18-year period, including as President of SNC-Lavalin Capital Inc., its project finance advisory arm, between 2001 and 2008. Ms. Bergevin holds a Bachelor of Commerce (with Distinction) from McGill University, graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania Advanced Management Program and holds an ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.
Ms. Bergevin has served on the Board of Directors for Talisman Energy Inc. since 2009 and previously held directorships at Fiera Capital Inc., the Montreal Board of Trade, la Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec and the Business Development Bank of Canada.

Ms. Sadowsky currently serves as Managing Partner at Gardener Advisory LLC, based in New York, New York, which provides consulting and advisory services predominately in the electricity power sector to public and private sector clients in the United States and abroad. Ms. Sadowsky retired, after more than 22 years as a New York City-based investment banker, as a Senior Managing Director from Evercore Partners, Inc, where she started and ran the power and utilities advisory group. Prior to Evercore, she was a Managing Director and Group Head at Citigroup’s Investment Bank and began her investment banking career at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Ms. Sadowsky holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Business Administration, focused on Finance and Accounting, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.