As part of Kinross’ high performance culture we encourage employees to enrich their skill sets by tapping into our global network of mines. This month marks a new milestone in global mobility with one of our Russian employees moving to Round Mountain in the US to work.
Ivan Dudko, Chief Metallurgist at Kupol is joining Round Mountain’s metallurgical team on a short term assignment as Metallurgical Services Manager. Ivan, who has never been to the US or lived abroad, decided to make the move to deepen his managerial experience and familiarize himself with new processes (Round Mountain has a heap leach, which Kupol does not.)
“I want to use all my skills and experience in mineral processing to make a contribution to the common cause of increasing the effectiveness of the mill process. Working at Round Mountain is also a great opportunity for me to enrich my managerial experience. There are also some new processes there, like heap leaching and carbon in leach, that I want to learn more about. And of course, I want to improve my English,” he says, in the midst of preparing for the move.
While the mining industry is full of expats who travel to all corners of the world to develop and run mines, the most common direction of flow is from the American operations out. Ivan is the second Kinross employee to travel from Russia to the USA, following in the footsteps of Yuriy Bukashkin, who as Deputy Chief Mining Engineer at Kupol, did a three month stint at Kettle River in 2013.
Kinross’s global mobility and talent management teams are hoping that trend will continue as part of the Kinross’ efforts to nurture talent across the company. “Short term development opportunities allow for employees to gain valuable Kinross experience while sharing knowledge and best practices amongst our mine sites,” says Fiona Hedley, Specialist, Global Mobility.
Prior to joining Kinross in 2008, Ivan worked at a research center in Krasnoyarsk (also in Siberia) focused on mineral processing. He has also worked in Russia’s mineral processing industry, bringing a great breadth of perspective to Kinross. At Kupol, he has worked on mill expansion and an intensive leaching project. He has also been involved in ore processing adjustment at Dvoinoye.
Ivan will be at Round Mountain until the end of September. His family is planning to visit him in summer and there is talk of a vacation on the West coast.
Ivan Dudko, Chief Metallurgist at Kupol
