Gerard Barron is the Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Metals Company, a role he has held since 2017. A seasoned entrepreneur, he launched his first venture while still in university in Australia and has since built multiple global companies across battery manufacturing, media, technology, and future-focused resource development.

Gerard believes that the nodule resource can serve as the foundation for an American industrial revival by providing a secure, abundant supply of nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese to reduce dependence on foreign adversaries while supporting domestic manufacturing, energy security, and advanced defense supply chains. Guided by first-principles thinking, Gerard’s thesis is that resource extraction should occur where it has the least impact on people and nature—a philosophy that drives the Company’s work in the abyssal zone of the Pacific Ocean, 1,000 miles southwest of San Diego. Approximately 4,000 meters below sea level, there are no Indigenous communities, and biomass is measured in mere grams per square meter. The Company’s resource consists of polymetallic nodules that rest unattached on the seafloor. Its projects have been ranked as the world’s largest undeveloped nickel deposit, with more than 1.6 billion tonnes of polymetallic nodules in situ on the seafloor, containing high grades of nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese — essential inputs for U.S. battery production, grid infrastructure, and national defense technologies.