Damon Barber is a global natural resources finance and operations executive with over 30 years of experience. Since 2014, Barber has been the senior managing director of Liberty Metals & Mining. He has led and directed all aspects of investing and managing a portfolio of over $1 billion of global private equity investments in the mining sector.
Barber was born and grew up in the small Appalachian town of Hopwood, Pennsylvania. As the grandson of a coal miner and the son of a mining engineer, he always wanted to work in the field of mining. He graduated from UK with a bachelor’s degree in mining engineering in 1990.
Barber began his career as a section foreman of CONSOL Energy’s Loveridge Mine in northern West Virginia. In 1994, he was accepted into the Wharton School of Business where he earned an MBA in finance in 1996.
Following Wharton, Barber went to work on Wall Street as an investment banker in Credit Suisse’s natural resources and energy group. In 2007, he was recruited by Deutsche Bank to help rebuild its metals and mining investment banking practice in the United States. In 2008, he accepted the position of head of Metals & Mining, Asia for Deutsche Bank and moved to Hong Kong with his soon-to-be wife, an Emmy award-winning television producer. During his investment banking career, Barber advised and assisted companies on over $70 billion of mergers and acquisition activities and over $20 billion of debt and equity capital raisings.
In 2010, Barber became the CEO and executive director of Hong Kong-based CST Mining Group, where he led a $600 million public equity raise to acquire and develop two copper mine projects in Australia and Peru. Under his leadership, one mining project was developed into commercial production and the other was sold for $505 million, returning CST approximately two times its investment in the project. While in Hong Kong, Barber and his wife were active in various charitable endeavors. They routinely delivered donations to orphanages in Cambodia and Myanmar and fundraised for a landmine-clearing effort and museum in Cambodia.
Barber returned to the United States in 2012 and accepted the position of president and CEO of potash mining company Prospect Global Resources in Denver, Colorado. In 2014, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts to do principal investing into the mining sector for Liberty Mutual.
Barber has served on the board of directors of Yara Dallol B.V., Atalaya Mining Plc, Ram River Coal Corporation, CST Mining Group, Marcobre S.A.C. and Baralaba Coal Company. While managing director of Baralaba from 2018-2021, he oversaw and directed the development of the Baralaba North metallurgical coal mine into commercial production. He has also appeared on CNBC Asia multiple times as an industry expert.
Barber lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife, Leslie, and their three children, Victoria, Nate and Jon.
