I grew up in Cowra, a small country town in NSW, and later moved to Goulburn (NSW) where I finished my high school years. I made the move to Wollongong to commence my university studies in 2007. While I loved growing up in a small town with a strong community feel and plenty of open space, I feel so at home living on the coast and extremely lucky to live in such a beautiful region.
I have always had an interest in working with people. I felt my degree which included Majors in Journalism and Marketing represented my personality – always wanting to seek the facts and understand the story and then on the flip side learning to influence and engage others in areas that are most important to me.
Since moving to Illawarra, I have always been fascinated with mining and the steel-making process and wanted the opportunity to better understand the industry in all its intricacies. South32’s values also attracted me to the Company - the emphasis on care both for employees and the wider community is something that is aligned with my own personal values.
The Graduate Program gave me exposure to a number of different areas across the business including some foreign to my own skillset. I enjoyed the challenge it presented such as working on a project which would see the use of drones / UAV technology applied across the South32 Australia Region, which in turn has led to a positive outcome on expenditure and safety across many of our operations.
Building relationships with various operational and functional teams across the country proved to be a challenge at times but also very rewarding. In one of the projects I worked on, I made my own personal commitment that I would connect a team of specialists in the same field to share information across the business with the aim of generating ideas for continuous improvement. This later transpired into a regional team being set up and a number of improvement initiatives implemented.
I really enjoy coming to work each day, for me every day is different and I love that about my job. I really like the fact that South32 advocates for an inclusive workplace where everyone should feel comfortable speaking up and feel this is the case for my team.
Working with the community and other stakeholders to have genuine conversations that see the Company think outside of the box and change the way we do things has been a highlight of working for South32. This has often resulted in more efficient outcomes for the business and a better result for the community. Since working for South32, I have been lucky enough to be offered many opportunities including working with other operations such as TEMCO in Tasmania and offering support as a community specialist.
My career goals are to continue to follow my passion of working with people and creating strong, sustainable and vibrant communities that thrive long after mining leaves the area. I don’t have aspirations to become a certain ‘role’ as such, but I do have hopes and desires to create, lead an accomplish initiatives that will help continue to accelerate our performance and contribution.