Current chairman and chief executive officer Paul Matysek will remain on the board and continue to serve as CEO.

“Paul and I had the pleasure to work together very successfully at Potash One, where I was the chairman, and which we sold in a friendly transaction for $434 million cash in 2011. Paul’s team is now developing an important gold project in Guyana, a beautiful country of which I am very fond and with which I have had a long experience,” Friedland said in a press release.

Gold X has also entered into an agreement with Ivanhoe Capital, a venture capital firm founded by Friedland, under which the latter will be paid a finder’s fee should Gold X successfully complete a financing or business combination transaction with a company introduced to it by Friedland.

Gold X is currently developing the Toroparu gold project located in the Upper Puruni River Region of western Guyana. So far, the company has spent more than $150 million on the project to both classify 7.35 million ounces of measured and indicated resources and 3.15 million ounces of inferred resources.

Gold X’s stock soared nearly 17% to a three-year high of C$3.48 following the new appointment. The Vancouver-based gold junior has a market capitalization of C$125.2 million.