Martino De Ciccio
CEO: Montage Gold
‘We strive to position Montage as the partner of choice through our win-win approach and strong focus on local content’
MONTAGE Gold’s CEO, Martino de Ciccio, finds it hard to sit still. After spending less than a year in identifying a lucrative gold project in Africa – the 4Moz Koné project in Côte d’Ivoire – he used 2024 to raise the $800m needed to bring the project into development. He did this by selling forward $625m of gold, almost 20% of the project’s forecast output, to Canadian royalty company Wheaton Precious Metals at $440/oz. This was at the time when gold was already trading at $2,200, so at current price levels that is a massive discount. But De Ciccio believes that it was cheaper than giving away shares.
Furthermore, he argues, Montage has a heap of spot-price exposure to come via the remaining production at Koné and an aggressive acquisition programme. During 2025, he announced the acquisition of African Gold, thereby adding the quality resource-stage Didievi project to provide near-term growth and the prospective Wendé property to its portfolio. Both are also in Côte d’Ivoire. Development of Koné itself is progressing well. It is expected to commence production in Q2 2027, earlier than initially forecast, with more than 2,900 employees and contractors on site. It has an estimated 16-year mine life and sizeable annual production of more than 300,000 ounces of gold over the first eight years.
During 2025, the Côte d’Ivoire government also granted two additional exploration permits, further increasing the Koné land package.
LIFE OF MARTINO
A chartered accountant with a degree from Canada’s McGill University, De Ciccio earned his stripes at La Mancha, the investment company founded by Egyptian telecoms and mining mogul Naguib Sawiris. De Ciccio then jumped directly into mining, becoming head of strategy for seven years at Endeavour, which La Mancha had helped finance in the gold miner’s early years. He was then appointed Endeavour’s deputy CFO for a year and joined Montage in February 2024. He is also a non-executive at Bluestone Resources and Northisle Copper and Gold.
