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查看配图Agnico Eagle Mines chair Sean Boyd has been awarded The Northern Miner's earns the Lifetime Achievement Award.
A takeover that brought Coeur Mining (TSX, NYSE: CDE) into Canada, a strategy connecting uranium production with reactor technology and four decades spent building a gold giant underpin The Northern Miner’s latest leadership awards.
Coeur CEO Mitchell Krebs is Mining Person of the Year, Cameco (TSX: CCO; NYSE: CCJ) president and chief operating officer Grant Isaac receives Operator of the Year, and Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX, NYSE: AEM) chair Sean Boyd earns the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“It wasn’t really about, and hasn’t really been about, how big we are, how many mines we’ve built,” Boyd told The Northern Miner. “It’s more about how we did it, and just trying to do things the right way.”
The three honourees pursued different paths to growth. Each invested through industry cycles, strengthened existing operations and built teams that could sustain the business beyond any one transaction.
Krebs adds Canada
Boyd and Isaac are due to receive their awards on stage Nov. 29 at The Northern Miner’s London Symposium. Krebs is set to receive his award at The Northern Miner’s Rome Symposium, which runs May 26–27, 2027.
Coeur CEO Mitchell Krebs is The Northern Miner’s Mining Person of the Year.
For Krebs, the defining move was Coeur’s acquisition of New Gold, completed in March. The takeover added Rainy River in Ontario and New Afton in British Columbia, giving the Chicago-based producer its first operating Canadian mines and a substantial copper business.
The deal capped a rebuilding effort that began after Krebs became CEO in 2011. Moving the company out of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, brought fresh ideas into a business with roots there dating back to the late 1920s, Krebs told The Northern Miner in an Oct. 16 interview. Coeur sold assets outside North America and reinvested in mines it decided to keep, including Rochester in Nevada.
The Rochester expansion strained Coeur’s finances, but as the enlarged silver-gold mine began to deliver, it gave the company the momentum to buy SilverCrest Metals, Krebs said. That acquisition, completed in February 2025, brought cash and the high-grade, lower-cost Las Chispas mine in Mexico. It helped Coeur repay debt and repair its balance sheet before buying New Gold.
Coeur recorded negative free cash flow of $297 million (C$416 million) in 2023. Krebs said in October he expected it to generate close to $1.5 billion in 2026, even with only nine months of contributions from the New Gold mines.
“Before we were consumers of capital, now we’re generators of a significant amount of cash flow, and our focus now is really turning to capital allocation with a much longer-term perspective,” Krebs said.
The immediate priority is integrating the acquisitions and finding more mineralization around existing mines. Coeur plans to spend about $158 million on exploration this year, almost 50% more than last year, Krebs said.
“I mean, it’s an extractive business, right?” he said. “So if you’re not finding more ounces, you need to be adding new ounces through external opportunities.”
Isaac builds demand
Cameco’s 49% interest in Westinghouse Electric connects its uranium operations with reactor technology, fuel fabrication and servicing. Helping utilities build reactors could create decades of demand for Cameco’s uranium and fuel services, Isaac told The Northern Miner in an October interview about the company’s growth strategy.
Cameco president and chief operating officer Grant Isaac receives The Northern Miner’s Operator of the Year award.
“Over the long run, the value of selling uranium for 80 to 100 years is way greater than the five to seven years of building a reactor,” Isaac said. “So think of it as our strategy is about not waiting for others to create new demand for us. We’re out there building our own demand.”
At its mines, Cameco bases production decisions on long-term contracts with utilities, Isaac said. At McArthur River in Saskatchewan, unexpected clay slowed the ground-freezing work needed to reach new mining areas. Management held off on spending heavily to recover lost time because customer commitments didn’t justify the cost, he said.
About 30% of Cameco’s licensed and built production capacity was either being held back or on care and maintenance, Isaac said. That gives the company room to increase output as utilities sign contracts.
Boyd’s lasting culture
Boyd’s recognition reflects Agnico’s transformation from a regional producer with one mine into Canada’s largest mining company. During his 24 years as CEO, its market value increased more than 100-fold.
His account begins with founder Paul Penna’s generosity and the relationships that persuaded a young auditor to join the company in 1985. As Boyd recalled in his Lifetime Achievement profile, that became Agnico’s “culture of the heart,” placing employees and communities alongside shareholder returns.
When safety concerns forced the closure of the Goldex mine in 2011, Agnico committed to paying employees for three months. During the 2013 gold price collapse, it took a measured approach to spending and jobs, preserving the strength to pursue subsequent opportunities.
Those included Canadian Malartic, while the 2022 Kirkland Lake Gold merger added Detour Lake, Macassa and Fosterville.
Asked what Penna would recognize today, Boyd returned to the company’s character.
“He’d recognize the feel,” Boyd said. “He’d be prouder of the fact that we did it in a way where it still feels the same.”