The well-known chairman of Artemis Resources has exited the junior Pilbara explorer.

The move is part of a board and management restructure, Artemis told the market this morning.

Mr Lenigas, who also chairs several other resources companies including Clancy Exploration (ASX:CLY) and copper and gold explorer Southern Hemisphere Mining (ASX:SHH), has resigned due to the “demands on his time from family and his other business activities”.

The news kicked shares up over 9 per cent to a intra-day peak of 9.3c on Tuesday.

Director Ed Mead told Stockhead that Mr Lenigas had achieved what he set out to do with Artemis and it was time to bring in the expertise to move the junior into production.

“He’s done what he does to companies which is take a company that’s got good assets, unloved, in a bit of trouble, and uses a lot of his connections and people he knows to get the company up and running,” he said.

Mr Mead said Artemis also wanted to beef up its corporate expertise.

“A lot of what we’ve done with deals I suppose is heavily utilise lawyers,” he explained.

“So we want to internalise a bit more of that. But we just thought it was an opportune time with David wanting to depart to restructure the company. We’re still moving all our assets forward.”

Artemis’ Canadian partner Novo Resources was the company that ignited the interest in Pilbara conglomerate gold in mid-2017.

Conglomerate gold is nuggets hosted in rock containing rounded grey quartz pebbles and other minerals.

The world’s most productive gold region, South Africa’s Witwatersrand Basin, is famous for its similar geological formation.

Artemis also recently stepped up its effort in the hotly talked about Paterson province.

The company revealed last month that it had identified eight gold and copper targets near Greatland Gold’s Havieron project in the region.

Taking Mr Lenigas’ place is Sheikh Maktoum Hasher al Maktoum, a member of Dubai’s ruling family.

Sheikh Maktoum Hasher al Maktoum has been a director of Artemis since October 2017 and is the president of Al Fajer Group, chairman of Dubai International Holdings and Manannan Hydro, and a non-executive board member of the Commercial Bank of Dubai.

“The Sheikh, His Highness, has got a lot of business interests, and as we move the projects forward we see that the structure of the company will be focusing more towards getting Artemis into production,” Mr Mead said.

Alex Duncan-Kemp has also resigned as a director and is being replaced by Dan Smith.

Mr Smith is a non-executive director of Europa Metals (ASX:EUZ), Lachlan Star (ASX:LSA), Hipo Resources (ASX:HIP) and White Cliff Minerals (ASX:WCN).