Steve de Jong

CEO, PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR, INTEGRA GOLD CORP.

S teve de Jong's first week as

CEO in 2008 was shakier than most. “I didn't even answer the phone–i was too nervous,” he says. De Jong was also 25. But he proved adept as chief executive of Rogue Resources Inc., a Vancouver-based junior mining company with an interest in an iron ore asset. Two years later, de Jong took a leadership role at Kalahari Resources Inc., the predecessor of Integra Gold. He's since grown Vancouver-headquartered Integra, which operates the Lamaque gold project in Quebec, from a $15 million penny stock to its $595 million acquisition by Vancouver's Eldorado Gold Corp. in May.

De Jong entered the mining sector with his father, an RCMP officer who found a second career as an investor and junior board member upon retiring from the force in 2006. In de Jong's view, his youth and his dad's inexperience allowed them to ask no-nonsense questions. “In an industry with a lot of big personalities, I think it was refreshing for investors and people in our company to see that management style,” he says.