Items of Interest Thursday, January 22, 2009 Learn from top recruiters and board members tips about how to get on a board. This session will allow you to gain valuable insight on how board members are selected and learn: Event details:
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Thursday, January 22, 2009
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Article published by Mining Industry Human Resource Council on Women in the Mining Workplace - click here.
Women strike the mother lode - BRW
Story by Tim Treadgold
11 January 2007
BRW
WOMEN are entering and excelling in the once male-dominated world of mining, Rising to become senior executives and owners.
Managing failure, DR Megan Clark says, is one way to measure success. Another, more enjoyable way is to add $500 million in shareholder value from a single innovation. Both are targets for Clark, the head of technology at BHP Billiton and one of the people leading a revolution in Australian mining: the rise of women into senior executive positions.
The challenge for miners, and that means men, is to learn how to work with women bosses who bring a reputation for doing things differently, and who challenge conventions - up to the point of disobeying directions.
In her role as vice-president, technology, Clark is responsible for three mineral and petroleum research centres and 240 employees. But much more important than staff and budget numbers is the value created by research work, such as unlocking the secrets of the biological treatment of copper and nickel ores or working with customers to find a better way to blend iron ores that maximises blast furnace efficiency.
"You have to take big bets and be very innovative in developing technologies," she says. "You also have to know when to quit. It's very important knowing how to manage failure in high-risk portfolios. It is simply part of the process that you kill things. The worst thing is [if] you don't - you end up investing in something that doesn't grow your business. Now, why would you do that?"
Making tough decisions, and turning the mining world upside down, has been part of Clark's career in mining that started as a geology student at the University of Western Australia and exploded after she was recruited by Roy Woodall, the legendary chief of exploration for nickel and gold miner WMC Resources.
Clark was the first woman to work underground, defying the WA laws of the time, and she discovered the Defiance goldmine for WMC near Kambalda by drilling closer to a road than company rules permitted - hence the name given to her discovery.
However, it was at the Mount Charlotte goldmine, on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie , that the mining world got its first glimpse of Clark 's difference, and the role she is playing in the feminine revolution rumbling through the mining world. WMC appointed her mine geologist although the law said she could not work underground, and she dodged government mine inspectors when they visited until she decided to end the cat-and-mouse farce. "I thought this is all a bit silly so on the next visit I showed the inspector around underground," she says. "We went right through the mine and he said nothing. A few days later a letter of prosecution arrived."
When negotiations to drop the prosecution failed, Clark appealed directly to the then governor-general, Sir Zelman Cowan, and in 1982 won a waiver directly from the Queen that ended centuries of prejudice against women in mining.
Today, she is not alone. Women geologists who graduated in the 1980s and 1990s are taking on senior mining positions, with some emerging as the owners of mines or mining company chief executives.
The richest women in mining are the mother and daughter team of Gina and Bianca Rinehart at Hancock Prospecting. While not working at the mine face, they are overseeing the creation of a business that will become one of Australia 's largest iron ore miners. Construction of the $1 billion Hope Downs mine in the Pilbara, a 50:50 joint venture with Rio Tinto, is under way, with two more mines on the drawing boards.
In the executive category, more women are rising to the rank of managing director in exploration and mining companies. They include:
* Maureen Muggeridge is chairman and chief executive of Paramount Mining, a diamond explorer with interests in Australia and Africa . In the mid-1970s as a field geologist she played a leading role in the discovery of the Argyle diamond mine in WA. Her principal focus today is the Ochinso diamond project in Ghana where diamonds have been found across a wide area.
* Kate Hobbs, the managing director of the uranium explorer Uran, and a former managing director of Hindmarsh Resources and executive director of Austminex. After a career that included time as a geologist with the Australian Atomic Energy Commission and Italian company Agip Nucleare, her main interest is exploring for uranium in eastern Europe including Ukraine and Kazakhstan .
* Nanette Anderson, managing director of the Tasmanian and New South Wales-focused explorer Jaguar Minerals. A former field geologist with WA diamond miner Kimberley Diamond, Anderson moved to Jaguar after it was floated as a separate business by Herald Resources. Her focus is the Wilson River zinc prospect where drilling is under way to follow up a discovery made in 2006.
The rise of women in mining, which includes the appointment of Dr Beverley Ronalds as head of petroleum at the CSIRO, is being recognised by professional groups such as the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, which has established a Women in Mining Network as part of the process of breaking down centuries of exclusion.
Topics on the network's agenda illustrate the issues that affect women in a male-oriented business, including the best practice for returning to work after maternity, parents versus non-parents and "new girls in the workplace, the rise of the women network".
The opinions of women at the top in mining are sharply divided as to how they are being accepted. "There's no sea change under way," Hobbs says. "Women started practising in these fields in the 1970s, so now we've reached seniority. There's no doubt that we're grossly under-represented at a senior level. We're still very much the oddity in the industry."
Anderson disagrees, saying the increasing number of women in the science-based professions is changing the status of women in mining. "I think you can see a change even over the past three-to-four years," she says. "There are still the morons [among the men] who treat you differently, but it's changing fast."
Muggeridge is undecided. Asked whether a change is afoot, she says: "I don't know ... I'm not one of those women's champions. I just get on with my job and I happen to be a woman."
A change she says she has noticed after 30 years of experience in the field is "a tremendous increase in the number of women geologists in the field, which is really very healthy for the industry".
Some men do not agree with Muggeridge, and it is easy to find them at the annual Diggers and Dealers forum in the Australian gold and nickel capital, Kalgoorlie .
Attracting more than 1200 delegates, the Diggers and Dealers remains male-oriented, with only a handful of female delegates and no associates or partners programs.
At the 2006 event in August, a forum organiser, John Langford, was asked why there was no active attempt to encourage women to attend or for men to bring their wives and replied: "I don't think the boys would like that".
It was an interesting reaction, given that the Diggers and Dealers forum is owned by a woman, Kate Stokes, the widow of the founder, Geoff Stokes.
"I wouldn't deny it was quite difficult in the early days," says Muggeridge, whose field exploits are renowned among mineral explorers. "I was confronted every day by the fact that I was a woman in a man's world, and I had to accept it whether I liked it or not.
"I dealt with it. There were only two ways you would be accepted in field posts in those [early] days if you where the woman boss in the field. You were either the bossy bitch or the mother. I had a choice and I chose to be mother. If you tried to be any other role it didn't work."
Gina Rinehart declined to comment. In an emailed reply, she suggested the work she and Bianca Rinehart are doing be mentioned, and offered to send an update on exploration work at the Roy Hill iron ore project.
The trailblazing efforts of women such as Muggeridge, Hobbs and Clark have cleared the way for younger women such as Anderson who is finding the job of being a female boss in what is still a man's world relatively easy. A graduate from UWA in 1998, Anderson says she has noticed many more women in the traditional male faculty of geology.
"I've seen a lot more women entering the mining industry, and really it's just a matter of time before they reach management positions," Anderson says. "We need to get the numbers up for the talent to come through. There are a lot more women on site, which is really quite good."
And was there a time when she felt lonely on an exploration site? "I don't think 'lonely' would be the word I would use as the only woman in an exploration camp" is Anderson 's rejoinder.
"I think you can see the change everywhere," she says. "Even at Diggers [& Dealers] you can see it. Three years ago I was one of a handful of women there. Now you can look down the aisle [in the auditorium] and see women intermingled with the men."
If Anderson 's road to the top has been relatively easy, it was a lot harder for Clark as she battled her way to the status of one of the highest-placed executives in world mining. Her first choice for university studies was chemical engineering, but as she was overseas at enrolment time her parents ticked the geology box as a first-year science option.
Clark quickly discovered the simple pleasures of kicking old rocks in the outback. That chance tick, coupled with Woodall's talent spotting, launched her on a 14-year career at WMC.
She still remembers Woodall correcting her long-winded answer after he asked what she wanted to achieve. "He said to me: 'No, Megan, that's wrong. The correct answer is: I want to discover ore bodies. Now, what do you want to do Megan?' " With Woodall's advice ringing in her ears, she led the team which discovered the Defiance goldmine near Kambalda.
Her boss at that time in the mid-1980s was Tony Palmer, who retired recently as chief executive of Newcrest Mining.
"I can still remember Tony telling me to not drill too close to the road," Clark says of the discovery of Defiance . "We did, but the discovery was so good that we were soon forgiven."
Successfully mixing family with outback work has, arguably, been one of Clark 's greatest achievements. She took six years off work to have two children then returned to work at WMC's Hill 50 goldmine at Mount Magnet, about 500 kilometres north-east of Perth.
Two significant events occurred at Mount Magnet . Clark invented "reverse fly-in, fly-out" - she worked remotely (a role normally reserved for men) with her husband flying to the mine at weekends - and was invited to run the venture capital operations of WMC.
"I took the kids with me [to Mount Magnet ] and to this day I don't know if anyone else has done it," she says. "I stayed, and he was a very sad sight getting off the plane on a Friday night while everyone else had a big grin as they were getting away. It was strange, but it worked."
From Mount Magnet , Clark travelled to Boston , Massachusetts , to work on WMC's venture capital program, an assignment that introduced her to the finance world and pushed her upward to her position as one of the top executives at BHP Billiton.
Unlock the value
Closing the gap between technology and commerce is what motivates Dr Megan Clark. It's a personal campaign launched when she was invited into the world of venture capital as head of an internal investment fund set up by WMC Resources. The appointment in 1992 took her from the outback mining town of Mount Magnet, Western Australia , to one of the world centres of venture capital, Boston , Massachusetts .
Clark's brief from the finance director at WMC, Don Morley, was to invest in mining technologies and to add value to intellectual property. In keeping with her record of bending the rules, she told her boss the structure of the fund was wrong.
"I told Don that there was no way I could make 20 strategic investments in mining technology. I could make two or three, but can I have the rest [of the investment fund] to make money? I said don't tell me no or I'll be insubordinate. I'll do all that you want, but let me make money." Morley did, and Clark made money for WMC.
From running an investment portfolio in Boston , Clark was recruited to join the investment bank Rothschild Australia to set up an investment fund in early-stage technology. From there, it was across to BHP Billiton in 2003 to take charge of its technology division. Initially, the job was similar to her role at WMC in Boston , finding ways to commercialise intellectual property. Like the WMC experience, Clark was soon doing things her way.
"I signed on the dotted line first then said to Marcus [ Randolph , BHP Billiton's head of organisation development] that there is no value in commercialising technology," she says. "I can probably get you $5 million or $10 million. The real value, the billions of dollars, sits in two areas. One, in unlocking the value in the resources we currently have; and secondly, unlocking the value in future resources - that's where the value sits in our industry. Commercialising technology in our industry, that's in the $1 million to $5 million range."
Clark's approach is for her team to develop a "deep understanding" of each BHP Billiton business unit. "We have to see where the value is. Once we understand that, we set about building a portfolio of growth options for existing assets and to unlock the value in new assets.
"We only make the big bets which will deliver big wins. Each of those bets must be able to deliver for a company of our size options in the range of $250 million to $500 million in additional shareholder value. They are really big bets.
"An example is making sure we extract full value from our low-grade heap leach work at Escondida [a big copper mine in Chile ]. If we can get the bugs [bacteria] to do what we want we can add enormous value, way above industry best practice. If that [biological ore treatment] works, it unlocks the future options for the company in Chile ."
Another value-adding example is working with iron ore customers to blend ore, a process that involves BHP Billiton staff understanding exactly how customers operate their blast furnaces.
"It isn't just a case of blending our ores to meet a customer specification," Clark says. "We actually go to our customers and say, 'Here's how you actually optimise your blast furnace'. We even help them blend Chinese ore with our ore.
"This is some of the most fundamental science in the whole group. It involves a deep understanding of how a blast furnace works, and we then advise our customers on what to do, and the result is that we've been on a journey that enables us to sell [iron ore] fines, whereas 15 years ago you couldn't sell fines.
"It's not just innovation at our end, it's innovation at the customer end."
Extreme geology
If Megan Clark is working at the extreme end of making technology work for mining, Kate Hobbs and Maureen Muggeridge are working at the extreme end of mineral exploration through their search for uranium in Ukraine and diamonds in Ghana .
Both women, in keeping with their pioneering nature, see nothing unusual in going to remote areas of the world to make a discovery which, for Hobbs, started by unravelling some of the deeper secrets of the former Soviet Union.
"I don't think a lot of people outside the industry appreciate how advanced the uranium exploration work was in the Soviet era," she says. "It is openly available now, and across the old Eastern bloc are some of the world's top uranium mines."
The Hobbs plan is being played out through Uran, the company of which she is managing director. It is involved in the initial acquisition of prospecting rights in Ukraine , Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan . The work was aided by geologist Joe Cucvara who is fluent in Russian and Ukrainian and who has worked on uranium projects in Australia and central Europe .
"We're not a grassroots explorer," Hobbs says. "We're only interested in projects which are close to production and in which we have a close association with the government of the country in which we're working."
Muggeridge faces an equally daunting challenge but is confident - as geologists always are - that she is on to a potential company-making discovery for Paramount Mining at the Ochinso prospect in Ghana .
"The early indications are very encouraging," she says of the results obtained from a series of prospecting pits from which 53 diamonds have been recovered.
Located on the historic Birim diamond field, which has yielded an estimated 100 million carats of diamond over several decades, the gems found by Paramount are all of commercial size.
"The initial program focused only on assessing the spread of diamonds and gold in the main river system," Muggeridge says. "So these results are excellent.
"It's clear that several major drainage systems require a more detailed assessment in the next phase of work."
Jaguar Minerals managing director Nanette Anderson has a priority exploration target that is less challenging, although the west coast of Tasmania is not an easy place to work.
The rugged terrain means that the drilling rig used at the Wilson River zinc prospect site has to be lifted into position by helicopter and workers have to travel by quad-bikes that can handle narrow trails through dense scrub
