About

Elizabeth Mena Fernández has over 20 years of experience advising multinationals in both greenfield and brownfield projects in highly regulated sectors. Mena joined Corporación Minera Dominicana (Cormidom) in 2013, to work as a legal advisor and government relations manager. It remains the only mining company in the Dominican Republic that does not have a special arrangement with the state. Her duties as legal manager involve anticipating the legal issues that may have a material impact in the project or the proposed timetable for its operation. In October 2017, she was promoted to vice-president of the company, continuing with the responsibilities of the legal department and also assuming a more active role in institutional relationships. When she joined Cormidom, she was tasked with creating a legal department, and Mena used her prior experience and the guidelines of the parent company to put in place a structure that facilitated the efficient management of the budget of this new department. In order to foster the company’s relations with the government, the province and the private sector, she undertook an active role in several institutions that have a positive impact in the community surrounding sustainable mining. She is currently in charge of institutional relations with the executive branch, the legislative branch, the municipal government as well as industrial associations such as AIRD, Ecored and Asiex. She is also an active member of the Cormidom Foundation that works on a regular basis for the sustainable development of communities near the Cerro de Maimón mine. ‘As part of my duties with such institutions, I have had the opportunity to revise and participate in roundtable discussions on a proposed bill to comprehensively amend the existing mining law, which was drafted by the ministry of energy and mines and submitted to the executive branch’, says Mena. She is additionally a member of the board of directors of the Dominican Chamber of Mining and Fuel (CAMIPE), the Dominican association of exporters Adoexpo, and of the Comision Nacional EITI-RD to promote transparency in the extraction industry, proving her integration with, and contribution to, the wider mining sector in the country.