Dr. J. Chris Anderson is the Director and Principal Consultant for Yirri Global. He is a leading international community and social performance practitioner, working with the extractive sector as well as with development agencies and Indigenous and other communities. Over more than 20 years, Dr. Anderson has worked as an executive for major mining companies (e.g., Newmont Mining Corporation, Rio Tinto, and Normandy Mining), focusing on social impacts and land and community issues, including stakeholder engagement and agreement-making in more than 17 countries including Australia, the United States, Mexico, Peru, Mongolia, Brazil, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Turkey, Canada, Indonesia, Mongolia and South Africa.
As well as a social performance practitioner and industry and community problem solver, Anderson is an active academic, teacher, and writer. Dr. Anderson is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining. He is also a Research Associate at the Colorado School of Mines and a past member of the Mining Engineering School’s Industry Advisory Committee. Anderson is a Strategic Advisor with Acorn International (WWW.AcornIntl.net) and a Senior Advisor with Business for Social Responsibility (WWW.BSR.org).
Past roles include Director of the South Australian Museum, International Council on Mining & Metals Working Group Chair on Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights, and Open Contracting Partnership board member. Dr Anderson has won several awards for his work, including a UN Human Rights award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Race Relations, the UCLA Pacific Rim Foreign Scholar Award, and Alumnus of the Year at the University of Queensland in 2013. He is the author of more than 60 publications.
Dr. Anderson holds a PhD in Anthropology (based on almost 20 years of fieldwork with Indigenous peoples in Australia) from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.