Ex-JPMorgan Metals Banker Joins Nova Minerals Board Ahead of Antimony Production

Nova Minerals appointed Joshua Girnun, a former JP Morgan metals and mining risk underwriter, to its board of directors effective July 1. The hire gives the company a director with institutional finance experience as it pushes toward first antimony production backed by a US$43.4 million Department of War award.

Nova recently completed its redomiciliation from Australia to the United States, aligning its corporate structure with its Alaska-based asset base. The company is advancing the Estelle Gold and Critical Minerals Project through feasibility and preparing for near-term production of military-grade antimony trisulfide.

At JP Morgan, Girnun co-founded a risk underwriting team that covered mining and energy clients. The team provided independent, cross-sector assessments for corporate lending and project finance. He also helped develop the firm's internal risk standard for natural resources. Earlier in his career, he held technical geology and project valuation roles across Sub-Saharan Africa. He holds a Master of Science in Metals and Energy Finance from Imperial College London and a Master of Science in Geosciences from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

CEO Christopher Gerteisen said Girnun's experience evaluating resource transactions at the institutional level will help the board oversee the Estelle feasibility study and the antimony production timeline.

Nova's Estelle project sits in the Tintina Gold Belt, a province that hosts Kinross Gold's Fort Knox mine among others. The belt contains a 220-million-ounce documented gold endowment. Estelle itself holds two defined multi-million-ounce gold resources and more than 20 prospects along a 35-kilometre trend. On the antimony side, the DoD award covers construction of processing capacity; Nova targets first production in late 2026 or early 2027. Antimony is classified as a critical mineral by the U.S. government, and domestic supply is virtually nonexistent.

Girnun said the DoD commitment and the scale of the Estelle resource convinced him to join.

The board addition reduces execution risk from a governance perspective. Nova is still pre-revenue. The DoD award covers the antimony plant capex. The gold mine itself will require additional financing. A director who spent years underwriting mining loans brings a lender's eye to the feasibility study and project economics. Gerteisen said Girnun's "perspective across technical geology, project economics and institutional finance is exactly what this next phase demands."

Nova files quarterly updates with the SEC and ASX. The most concrete near-term milestone is the antimony production target: late 2026 or early 2027. A delay would stretch the balance sheet; hitting it would show the company can execute on government-funded production.

For a comparison with a producing Alaska-based gold miner, see the KGC stock page. For broader context on the gold sector, the gold profile covers the supply and demand dynamics that affect development-stage projects.