Mr. Watson co-founded Sandstorm in 2008, prior to which he served as the Chief Financial Officer of Silver Wheaton Corp. In that role, Mr. Watson developed the silver streaming business model and helped raise over US$1 billion in debt and equity to fund Silver Wheaton's growth. Mr. Watson is a Chartered Accountant (Valedictorian), holds the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst charter holder and received a Bachelor of Commerce degree, with honours, from the University of British Columbia. He has won numerous awards for his professional and charitable achievements including the Early Achievement Award by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia, Canada's Top 40 Under 40 award, CEO of the Year by Business In Vancouver and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal. Mr. Watson also serves as the Chairman of the Audit Committee of the board of Bear Creek Mining Corp. and as a director of TrueGold Mining Inc.
Mr. Kazemi is a former Senior Manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers. In that role, he worked primarily in the mining and forestry sectors where he assisted clients in areas such as public financings, mergers and acquisitions, US/SEC securities filings, and various other areas. He has managed the audits of billion dollar multinational entities and also co-authored several publications including the annual BC Mining Industry Survey. Mr. Kazemi articled with PricewaterhouseCoopers where he obtained the Chartered Accountant designation and is a graduate of the University of British Columbia where he received a Bachelor of Science (Mathematics).
Mr. Awram is a co-founder of Sandstorm and has overseen the corporate due diligence process during the company's dramatic growth since 2008. Mr. Awram has evaluated hundreds of projects and has completed on-site due diligence on dozens of mines all over the world. Prior to Sandstorm, Mr. Awram was the Director of Investor Relations for Silver Wheaton Corp., where he was responsible for investor relations and corporate development. Mr. Awram graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology.