Fortuna Silver Mines

Jorge Ganoza has led Fortuna as President and CEO since co-founding it in 2005. He is a geologist by training and previously managed operations at Hochschild Mining's Peruvian assets. His brother Luis Ganoza serves as CFO, creating a concentrated family-led executive structure. The company's board includes Chairman Peter Marrone, who founded Yamana Gold and brings large-cap gold mining governance experience.

Fortuna mostly acquires brownfield or previously developed properties rather than drilling grassroots exploration targets. The 2021 Roxgold acquisition — a cash-and-shares deal — is its primary sourcing template: buy a junior producer with a management team and operating assets in a new jurisdiction, retain the local team, and fund capacity expansions from corporate treasury and operating cash flow. The Séguéla mine in Côte d'Ivoire and the Yaramoko mine in Burkina Faso both entered Fortuna's portfolio through this route.

Post-Roxgold in 2021, Fortuna's revenue split shifted from roughly 80% silver exposure to approximately 60% silver and 40% gold by value. The Caylloma mine in Peru produces silver with lead and zinc byproducts. San Jose in Mexico is a primary silver-gold mine. West African assets from the Roxgold deal are gold-dominant, which is why Fortuna now reports in silver-equivalent ounces rather than pure silver ounces (per the firm's quarterly reports).

Fortuna operates in four countries: Peru (Caylloma), Mexico (San Jose), Burkina Faso (Yaramoko), and Côte d'Ivoire (Séguéla). Peru and Mexico are established mining jurisdictions with clear mining codes, though Peru has periodic community-blockade risk. Burkina Faso's mining sector faces elevated political risk — two coups d'état since 2022 and growing security instability in the Sahel. Côte d'Ivoire, by contrast, has been politically stable. The dual-continent spread is deliberate: no single country represents more than roughly 35% of net asset value.

Fortuna historically operated without hedging its silver or gold production, selling at spot prices. Since acquiring the higher-cost West African gold assets in 2021, the company has not disclosed a systematic hedging program in its public filings, meaning shareholders retain full upside and downside to precious-metal price movements. This posture is common among mid-tier producers that want leverage to metal prices rather than lock-in margins.

Jorge Ganoza, the CEO and co-founder, and Luis Ganoza, the CFO, are brothers who together hold significant insider equity in Fortuna Silver Mines. The company was co-founded with Simon Ridgway, a Vancouver-based mining financier who previously chaired Radius Gold and now serves on Fortuna's board. The Ganoza family's mining roots trace to Peru's polymetallic belt, where Jorge worked as a mine geologist before starting Fortuna. The executive-chair split between the Ganozas and Ridgway created a founder-operator / capital-markets division of labor that has persisted since the 2005 founding.

Fortuna holds a large land package around its San Jose mine in Oaxaca, Mexico, where drilling has targeted extensions of the Trinidad and Bonanza vein systems. The company also acquired exploration permits near the Séguéla mine in Côte d'Ivoire through the Roxgold deal. Beyond organic brownfield drilling, the company has not run a major grassroots exploration budget, instead prioritizing cash generation and debt reduction post-acquisitions (per the firm's latest annual report).