Nereida Flannery, Managing Director and Partner

Nereida Flannery is a Partner and Managing Director at The Balloch Group (TBG), which she founded with Howard Balloch in 2001. She heads TBG's new business development, and is particularly engaged with the firm's mining and oil and gas clients. She led the team that advised Hong Kong-listed Zijin Mining on several of its major overseas acquisitions in 2007, including its acquisition of London-listed Avocet's Tajikistan gold asset. She was also very engaged in Sinopec's acquisition of a 40% interest in a Canadian oil sands project in 2005. She has advised Sinochem, Minmetals and other mining and oil and gas firms in China, helping them identify overseas acquisition targets and sourcing foreign strategic partners for their projects in China or overseas.

She played a key role in expanding and developing the Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources' annual mining conference. As a result, The Balloch Group is now co-organizer of the conference, which is Asia's premier mining conference and exhibition.

Prior to joining The Balloch Group, she was Shanghai General Manager and Vice President for International Business Development at Alibaba.com, Asia's largest B2B online marketplace. Before that Ms. Flannery served as Country Manager of the Canada China Business Council in China (CCBC), where she worked closely with member companies to design, execute and monitor their China entry strategies. She helped members identify joint venture partners and led many negotiations between government parties, member firms and potential joint venture partners. In her time at the Council, she also designed business programs for several business delegations led by the Canadian Prime Minister, Ministers or CEOs.

She has a Political Science degree from Queen's University in Canada and speaks Mandarin Chinese, French and Greek.