Andrew is a respected leader and resources professional with over 30 years experience operating in multiple commodities, across 4 Continents and diverse cultures within the mining and civil construction sectors. He likes to say he has thirty years of real experience, not just thirty times one year’s experience.. He has worked at most levels of his chosen field, starting out as a labourer through to successfully leading operational, technical, and functional teams at General Manager and COO level. Andrew has a strong affinity with site-based employees and work processes but also successfully navigates the corporate structure. He quickly resonates with people at all levels of a business and provides valued input. Given his roots he can “translate” messages and concepts from the shop-floor to leadership and vice versa. He is recognised as a Values driven leader and quickly develops trust. He describes his personal Values as respect, integrity, teamwork and accountability. Andrew is a very grounded, unpretentious person who brings a level of respectful and considered challenge to a group and causes teams to examine their underlying “truths”. Andrew has been recognised for his people-centric leadership approach that emphasises engagement, well-being and the sustained development and growth of his teams. He enables others to act and provides a safe environment for them to flourish and perform the work for which they are tasked. He believes in the “inverted pyramid” approach to leadership and human performance concepts/tools.
Through his career, he has experienced success through collaboration and strong relationship development with various levels of organisations, from frontline operator/maintainers and supervisors through to Managing Directors. In mining He has been responsible for the start-up of the large open pit mine at Oyu Tolgoi (OT) in Mongolia, the commissioning and operation of the OT concentrator and also the logistics and infrastructure for the site. OT employs about 8000 personnel. He has also had the responsibility for commencing Rio Tinto’s Mesa A, Brockman 4 and Gudai Darri mines in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. Through his career he has worked at gold, copper, zinc, lead, diamond and iron ore operations.All these roles involved the forming of teams and building team cultures. In the construction field Andrew has been involved with construction of the iconic Alice – Darwin railway line, a large river diversion and a highway upgrade. He has held the Master Coaching role for all of the Rio Tinto Pilbara mining operations, focussing on Manager, Superintendent and Supervisor levels. He most recently held the General Manager responsibility for closure of the Argyle Diamond Mine in the Kimberley region, with strong focus on environmental and community outcomes. He has worked for contracting companies and large mining houses which uniquely allows him to see both sides of an equation. Currently Andrew is providing coaching service at the General Manager level to one of the global top 5 mining companies, as well as assisting two fledgling contracting companies to navigate controlled growth of their businesses and teams
In whatever roles he has taken on he has always been very focussed on the safety and pastoral care of his people and himself and is remembered for the team cultures that he helps build and sustain. Andrew is known for his enthusiasm, big-picture vision and genuine belief in people. He is motivated by seeing those around him develop and thrive and has a long list of people who continue to use him in a trusted mentor/confidante capacity. Andrew is also quite uncomfortable with having his abilities and contribution spruiked like this, which counterpoints his humility and farm boy beginnings.