Congratulations to our 2021 winners:

CEO of the Year: Peter Bradford, IGO

New/Emerging Leader of the Year: Andrew Paterson, Great Boulder Resources

Explorer of the Year: Chalice Mining for the Julimar PGE-nickel-copper discovery

Deal and/or Merger of the Year: IGO for its joint venture with Tianqi Lithium and the sale of the Tropicana gold mine

IGO makes history in the fifth MNN Awards as being the first company to take out two categories, CEO and Deal.

Peter Bradford was also nominated for CEO of the Year last year and edged out runner-up, Mineral Resources managing director Chris Ellison, by just one vote.

IGO was the runaway winner of the Deal and/or Merger of the Year Award after buying into Tianqi Lithium's WA assets near the bottom of the lithium market in December for US$1.4 billion, a deal that catapulted the company into the ASX 100.

The company's green energy transformation was complete in April when it sold its 30% stake of the Tropicana gold mine in WA to Regis Resources for A$903 million.

The merger of Northern Star Resources and Saracen Mineral Holdings was runner-up.

After just missing out last year, Chalice Mining is our 2021 Explorer of the Year for the exciting Julimar find outside Perth.

In a flip of last year's results, 2020 Explorer of the Year De Grey Mining was runner-up.

The win makes it two in a row for Chalice after managing director Alex Dorsch picked up the New and/or Emerging Leader Award last year.

The closest category this year was New and/or Emerging Leader of the Year, but Great Boulder's Andrew Paterson came out on top.

The company's share price has doubled this year off the back of two WA gold discoveries.

The joint runners-up were Eagle Mountain Mining CEO Tim Mason and Firefly Resources managing director Simon Lawson, but very few votes separated the four nominees in that category.

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At the start of June, we asked readers to submit nominations, which were then used to formulate a shortlist for each of the four categories - always a difficult job for our editorial team.

MNN's editorial team spent the past month profiling all of the nominees, which can be viewed here.

The judging panel comprised MNN editor Kristie Batten, senior reporters Michael Quinn and Haydn Black, Mining Journal reporter Ngaire McDiarmid, MNN columnists Barry FitzGerald, Allan Trench and John Sykes, Cube Consulting general manager Rebecca Prain, Melbourne Mining Club chairman Richard Morrow, Lion Selection Group investment manager Hedley Widdup, RFC Ambrian associate director Cian Caffrey and PCF Capital MD Liam Twigger.

Voting was conducted via a Brownlow Medal style system, using a 3-2-1 allocation of votes to come up with clear winners in each category.

Trophies will be presented to the winners at Diggers & Dealers next week.

MNN congratulates all the winners and nominees. Thank you to our sponsors Mining People International, Vocus and SGS.