Europe-focused Adriatic Metals (ASX: ADT) (LON: ADT1) announced on Wednesday the resignation of its co-founder and chief executive officer, Paul Cronin, for family reasons.
Cronin, who will work at Adriatic Metals until August 9, will be succeeded by non-executive director Laura Tyler as interim CEO.
Tyler has served previously as chief technical officer at BHP, and held roles in executive leadership for the Olympic Dam, Cannington, and Ekati underground mines.
“It is vital for the success of any company that management recognize the need to evolve, as the company evolves. In the case of Adriatic, that evolution has been rapid and now is the appropriate time to for me to step down — for the company, and for me personally,” Cronin said in the statement.
Under Cronin’s leadership, Adriatic Metals went from being an exploration company wanting to revive a former silver operation, to produce first concentrate from the Vares silver mine in central Bosnia in less than seven years.
The outgoing CEO, who has lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the beginning of the project, will go back to Australia, his home country.
“It is the time for new leadership, with a skillset better aligned to the needs of the company, and its stakeholders,” Cronin said.
Adriatic Metals, which opened the Vares mine earlier this year, is now in the final phases of increasing production at the operation.
“We are making good progress on alternative plans to create additional tailings capacity and we are concurrently revising the mine stope sequencing that will aim to maintain metal output, whilst minimizing tailings generation,” chairman Michael Rawlinson noted.
In 2023, Adriatic contributed nearly 22% of foreign direct investment into Bosnia and 2% of its GDP. The miner deployed 69% of total capital domestically, the equivalent of $155 million, across 739 companies.
Shares in Adriatic fell almost 12% on the announcement, closing at 130.91p in London. That leaves the company with a market capitalization of £427.58 million ($543m).