Lara Smith has been an analyst for over thirteen years, starting her career as an equity analyst at Foord Asset Management and more recently as the lead analyst at Steinmetz Group, where she was responsible for sourcing, analyzing and evaluating potential mining acquisitions in Africa and the Baltic regions.

In addition to the Steinmetz principal resource portfolio of diamonds and ferrous metals, they also held a smaller portfolio of base and minor metals including nickel, cobalt, copper and lithium. In 2009, she independently authored three in-depth studies that formed the inception of Core Consultants: the first two provided outlooks for the lithium market and the third was on the global coking coal industry.

The Founder and Managing Director of Core Consultants in June 2009, Lara and her team are committed to supplying high-quality commodity market research, analysis and valuations to global institutions. Core Consultants has been engaged in over sixty numerous market balance, prefeasibility and feasibility studies for an array of commodities. Their most recent work includes sourcing an ethical cobalt producer in the DRC on behalf of a global mobile telecoms manufacturer, advisory work on the cobalt supply chain, a scoping study for a Spanish potash deposit and a feasibility study for a sulphuric acid plant in Botswana. Lara is also the primary author of three Core Consultants' reports including the "Core Consultants' Chromium Monthly Report," the "Core Consultants Monthly Rare Earth Report "and the "Core Consultants' Monthly Manganese Report".

An internationally recognized expert in the field of mining analysis and a well-known speaker, Lara has a BSc in Chemistry, Statistics and Economics and a BComm Hons in Financial Analysis and Portfolio Management from the University of Cape Town.