Owen Leigh Hegarty is an Australian mining professional with over forty years experience in the industry. Hegarty worked with the Rio Tinto Group for 24 years, where he held positions of Managing Director Asia and Managing Director of the group's copper and gold business. He founded the Oxiana Ltd Group which grew from a small exploration company into a multi-billion dollar base and precious metals producer, developer and explorer. Oxiana merged with Zinifex to form OZ Minerals in 2008.[1] Hegarty's commentary on the resources sector has been published in various news media including The Age, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, Jakarta Post, South China Morning Post, Wall Street Journal and other industry-specific publications.[2]