Business Council of Mongolia

In September of 2007 a group of committed business people in Mongolia met to form the Business Council of Mongolia. Our organizing Board of Directors represented a cross section of the business and economic mainstays of our economy. At the March, 2008 BCM Board meeting the Board of Directors was expanded with the confirmation of an additional 7 new Board members and now totals 14. The organizing Board was then named as BCM's Executive Committee.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:

Laurenz Melchers, Mongolian Star Melchers - Chairman
Laurenz Melchers is a co-founder of Mongolian Star Melchers Company (MSM). He and his family reside in Mongolia since 1997. He holds a B.Sc. from the University of Massachusetts.

MSM is a trade and service company, active in the following four fields of business: Mining & Construction Supply, Automotive retail and service, Consumer goods distribution, Health care & hospital supplies. MSM is known for quality of services and products and is the General Agent in Mongolia for many reputable companies including: Mercedes-Benz (cars and trucks), Mitsubishi Motors, Atlas Copco (Generators and Compressors), Boart Longyear (Drill rigs and consumables), Johnson & Johnson.

Tavan Bogd Group is a diversified enterprise with interests in manufacturing (Mongolia's largest flour mill by capacity); trade & services (Fuji film photo, Xerox, and Volkswagen); consumer goods (foods and household goods including those from Nestle, Heinz and Colgate Palmolive); travel & tourism (Kempinski Khan Palace, Juulchin Travel); and real estate & property.

Chad Blewitt, Oyu Tolgoi
In 2008 Chad Blewitt was seconded to the Oyu Tolgoi Project from Rio Tinto and is based in Ulaanbaatar. In this role Chad is responsible for the major commercial activities within the Oyu Tolgoi project, including the Finance, Legal, Procurement, IT, Travel, and Business Systems departments. The major focus in this role is to develop and implement systems and policies and build an organization capable of managing the commercial activities of the mine once the construction phase is completed.
Previously Chad managed the Emerging Markets global procurement program within Rio Tinto and was based in Shanghai, China for 4 years prior to moving to Mongolia. Chad has also worked previously in Banking, Investment and Accounting roles.
Chad has a Bachelors Degree in Economics (Honours) from Murdoch University in Western Australia. 

Oyu Tolgoi LLC, is Mongolia’s largest copper and gold mining company, which will build and operate the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project in Southern Mongolia. It is scheduled to begin commercial production in 2013.  Oyu Tolgoi is a strategic partnership between the Government of Mongolia (34% stake), Ivanhoe Mines (66%) and Rio Tinto.
Oyu Tolgoi’s key priorities in developing the mine responsibly are: the environment, the health and safety of its employees, sustainable development, world class technology and behaving with integrity. Oyu Tolgoi works closely with local communities, respects laws and customs and will work towards achieving a fair share of benefits and opportunities for the Mongolian people.
Oyu Tolgoi currently employs 2,639 Mongolian employees, 200 Mongolian students and has 2,000 Mongolian suppliers on its preferred supplier list.

Boroo Gold company is a subsidiary of Centerra Gold Inc.  Centerra is a growth-oriented Canadian-based gold mining and exploration company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and operation of gold properties in Central Asia, the former Soviet Union and other emerging markets worldwide.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS, additional members:

T. Amarzul, Petro Matad
A Mongolian citizen, educated in Singapore Amarzul has worked in the Mongolian Government’s Foreign Investment and Foreign Trade Agency (FIFTA). She then joined the resources sector in Mongolia, holding senior management positions in private sector resource companies.

Amarzul is the Executive Director of Petro Matad LLC, which is the first Mongolian Company to be granted a Production Sharing Contract with the Mongolian Government to explore for petroleum over Block XX, a petroleum Block in the far eastern part of Mongolia.

Mr. Bayarbakhdal is the Managing Director of QGX Mongol, the first western company to acquire an exploration license in 1994.  Prior to joining QGX Mongol, he served UNITEL, the second largest mobile operator of Mongolia, as the Chief Operating Officer leading marketing and sales teams to achieve its challenging targets.  He holds an MBA from the State University of New York.

Aggressive exploration programs since 1994 allowed QGX Mongol to discover many mineral deposits.  As a result, to date the company holds three mining licenses out of which Baruun Naran, metallurgical and thermal coal property, is the most advanced project located in South Gobi.  As a socially and environmentally responsible corporate citizen, QGX Mongol puts socially and environmentally safe and friendly operation as its highest priority which helped the company to become a benchmark to many exploration and mining companies in Mongolia.

Chris Cowan is Vice President, a Director and one of the founders of Erdene Resource Development Corp, a Canadian based company that has been conducting mineral exploration in Mongolia since 2002. Erdene is currently focused on outlining a large molybdenum/copper deposit in the southwest Gobi and conducting coal exploration throughout Mongolia under an alliance agreement with Xstrata Coal.

Mr Cowan has most recently acted as a minerals consultant providing services to exploration and mining companies worldwide since 1990. He previously spent 28 years with Falconbridge Limited in a variety of exploration, production, senior management and Board positions of affiliated public companies including Director of worldwide Exploration, President of United Keno Hill Mines and Chairman of Indusmin Ltd.
Chris holds a MSc in Geology and is a registered Professional Engineer (Ontario). He first came to Mongolia in 1997.

B. Chuluunbaatar, Monnis International
Mr. Chuluunbaatar founded Monnis International Inc., in 1998 and became  President and CEO. Now, the company has expanded its activities in the Mongolian market and has gained significant market positions in the fields of automotive service (official distributor of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd), mining (official dealer of Liebherr Group since 2002, Terex company since 2007), construction (official dealer of Bomag Group), energy, foreign trade, communication, insurance and air industry with over 500 employees and 7 daughter companies.

Mr. Enkhbat is the COO of Just Group LLC since 2007. Formerly, he was CEO of Mongol Daatgal, insurance and reinsurance company. Enkhbat obtained his MBA from the Australian National University and completed several training programs in management.

Just Group, established in 1999 as a foreign and domestic trading business, has recently been reconstructed into diversified operations in such sectors as oil products import, mining, agriculture, construction, foreign and domestic trading business with a team of 630 people.

B. Nyamtaishir, Mongolyn Alt Corporation
Mr. Nyamtaishir is the Chairman of the Board and President of Mongoliin Alt (MAK) Corporation.
He previously worked at the General Authority of National Security, Mongolian University of Science and Technology and Mongolian Construction Company of State Committee for Foreign Economic Cooperation.  He graduated from St.Petersburg Mining University, Russia.

Mr. Nyamtaishir founded MAK in 1993.  MAK  owns about 70 mining and exploration licenses throughout the country of precious and non-precious metals, coal, oil shale and construction materialswhich makes MAK the most diversified national enterprise in Mongolia’s mining sector.

J. Od, MCSJ. Od is President of MCS Group of companies. He previously worked as 1st Secretary, Mongolian Embassy in Washington DC and Foreign Affairs Counsel to Prime Minister of Mongolia. He graduated from Institute for International Relations (Moscow, Russia) and Institute for Foreign Affairs of Oxford University (UK). He also serves as Honorary Consul to Denmark.
The MCS Group was founded in 1993 as the first Mongolian private consulting company in the energy sector. The company has successfully expanded its business operations in such diversified fields as energy and infrastructure, information and communication technology, beverage manufacturing and distribution, wholesale and retail, property development, construction and printing. The MCS Group has over 3.100 employees and has been ranked as one of the top five taxpayers for the last several years.



Mr. Randolph S. Koppa, Trade and Development Bank
Mr. Koppa is President of Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia. He came to Mongolia in 2004 as part of the management and technical assistance program provided to TDB by ING Bank.

Mr. Koppa also serves as Chairman of the Mongolian Mortgage Corporation (MIK) and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Business Council of Mongolia and the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP).
Mongolia represents Mr. Koppa’s twelfth country in his 43 year international banking career. He is a graduate in International relations from the University of Wisconsin.

Trade and Development Bank is Mongolia’s oldest bank and the leader in corporate lending, trade finance, payments and foreign exchange business in the country. In addition, TDB serves Mongolians with top quality personal banking services including cards, electronic and SMS banking. TDB holds the rare distinction of being voted “Best Bank in Mongolia” two times in a row by “The Banker” and was awarded “Best Bank of the Year”, “Grand  Prix in Banking and Financial sector of Mongolia”, “Best Business Entity for its Social Responsibility”, “Best Tax Payer” and many more by different international and local organizations.