Mani Alkafaji

Mani Alkhafaji is President of First Majestic Silver Corp., the Vancouver-headquartered silver producer whose operations span Mexico and the United States. A trained mining engineer by background rather than a financier, he represents a different lane among resource-company leadership — the operator's mind rather than the deal-maker's — and he is the public voice First Majestic has put forward to explain why a multi-year silver price rally has so far failed to pull the new mine supply the market has historically expected.

Alkhafaji joined First Majestic in 2021 as Chief Operating Officer and was appointed President in July 2024, taking on day-to-day operating leadership while founder Keith Neumeyer transitioned toward an executive-chairman role. Before First Majestic he spent roughly fifteen years at Barrick Gold, finishing as General Manager of the Turquoise Ridge joint venture in Nevada, then moved to Newmont Corporation as Vice President of Operations for North America and General Manager of the Cripple Creek & Victor mine in Colorado, where he led an expansion that added approximately 350,000 ounces of annual gold production. He began his career as a drilling engineer at Mobil Oil in the Middle East.

His technical grounding — a Bachelor of Science in Mining Engineering and a Master of Science in Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy — shapes how he talks publicly about silver. Rather than price targets, Alkhafaji frames the bull case around the structural gap between mine supply and physical demand, and around the processing constraints such as autoclave circuits and refractory-ore treatment (extracting gold or silver from ore that resists conventional cyanidation) that govern how quickly a new discovery becomes a producing ounce. He is a registered Professional Engineer, a Distinguished Member of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration, and a recipient of the American Institute of Mining Engineers' President's Award, with publications in technical journals on autoclave processing and process control.

For a mining-stock investor, Alkhafaji matters less for his market calls than for what he is willing to put on the record about First Majestic's own assets — production guidance, reserve replacement, and the unit-cost profile that determines margin through the cycle. He is a regular on The Deep Dive and Investing News Network, and is the company's principal spokesperson when the conversation turns to why silver's price response to a multi-year supply deficit has been muted by the difficulty of bringing new ounces online.