BILL
’
S RESUME
(2007-
present)
Managing Director, Northern
Star Resources Ltd.
(1999-2007)
Barminco Mining Contractors.
Several
senior
management
positions
including General Manager of Operations with
responsibility for twelve mine sites across
Western Australia, and General Manager of
the Eloise copper mine in Queensland.
(1998-1999
)
GBF
Underground Mining
Company. Mining Engineer on the Junction
and Revenge gold mines.
(1995-1998)
Eltin Mining Company. Underground Supervisor and
Miner at Boddington, Kanowna Belle, Big Bell, Granites and Junction
gold mines.
Personal
•
Bill was born and educated inWestern Australia and holds a Bachelor
of Engineering Mining (Honours) from the Western Australia School
of Mines.
•
Bill is an avid sports fan and misses playing competitive sport. Bill’s
wife remarks he would watch any sport on television with a ball
in it (including badminton)!
•
Bill wonders if it is the country boy in him that makes him a ‘bit of a
bogan’. He loves a beer, drives a noisy car, has a jet ski, a trailer boat,
and his latest acquisition is a death-defying electric skateboard.
ounce, and now it’s $1,400, when are you ever going to give
it back? Everyone’s tried to grow their business – to get bigger
for the sake of it, but they’ve forgotten the principle that you’ve
got to give money back to shareholders. Unless you make profit
and then give some of that back to shareholders, why would
people invest in you? That’s where we’re different: we’re a
dividend paying company and we’re one of the highest yielding
dividend stocks on the resources sector in the ASX.
What is the secret of Northern Star’s success?
We’ve got a very good culture. It’s not my name, it’s all the
people that work for the company – we call it the ‘Northern Star
family’. There’s a fleet of people two doors away who are here
on their rostered break from site – that’s just the culture. Three
years ago I was the only employee at Northern Star, and the
Exploration Manager was a consultant. We could build up the
culture. When you inherit a team, it probably takes about two
years to change a culture, but the beauty was we started afresh.
We pretty much run like a private company. I have the same
management group as when I started three years ago, and they
have ownership within the company. They work a lot more
than what they need to do in their employment contracts, but
they’re rewarded for it too. It’s a success-driven culture, and we
celebrate our success. We don’t pay extraordinarily well, but
we’ve given good equity positions and people have made a lot
of money.
We’ve done a very good job operationally, and we’ve been
successful at finding more resources on our projects and
extensions to mine life. We’re a risk taking company, although
I’m actually a conservative person by nature, and my board’s
conservative. But one thing we understand is the risk associated
with mining, and the risk/reward scenario. I’ll take big risks,
but they’re very calculated and considered. A lot of thought
goes into what we do, and because my management group is
involved in the whole process, when it comes off, it’s a great tick
in everyone’s book. They’ve been part of it.
Which two or three people do you admire
the most?
One would be Richard Branson from Virgin Group. I’ve read all
his books, and I really love his approach to business. He’s very
entrepreneurial. The industries he’s turned on their head by
entering and having a crack at – that’s my type of character.
He’s a risk taker but a calculated risk taker. He’s gone and
headhunted the best people in the airline industry, and set them
up, and that’s a very similar philosophy to me, because I go
and find the best of the best people. You’re only as good as the
people under you, as a manager.
Outside that would probably be my dad: the work ethic and
the commitment that I’ve seen, but he well and truly never got
the work/life balance right. I probably didn’t get a relationship
with my dad until my mid-to-late twenties; he was always
working. He did it tough to get where he did in life, and he got
there late in life. He’s only now really enjoying life and he’s 73,
albeit a very energetic 73! I vowed never to do that, and always
in the back of my mind, I’m trying to get that work/life balance
right. That’s a consistent joke!
How do you manage your work/life balance?
There’s not much life balance at the moment. I am definitely a
workaholic. Anyone who works with me or for me comments
they get the 2 o’clock emails because I stay
up late and work. I probably work 16-17
hours a day.
I’ve got three young children: an
eight, a six and a five year old, and
they keep my wife and I pretty busy.
I don’t have a lot of hobbies. I just
like being around family and friends
–
that’s how I relax. I’ve got a house
down south, and get away when I can.
It’s the only place I physically relax.
I still take my iPad and computer down,
but often I don’t lift my computer lid
whilst there, although I still check
my emails on my iPhone and iPad
because I love getting the daily
mining/processing figures.
You’ve got to be careful because
your kids grow up very quickly and
you can miss that period. My work/
life balance is challenging. Your late
30
s/40s is when your career really
kicks off: business is going well, and
you’re trying to grow it. I’ve also got a
few private businesses that I’m involved
in, so it’s hard work, but I love the
sector, so coming to work is not a chore.
It’s probably my hobby!
What does the future hold
for you?
I want to grow Northern Star to the second
or third biggest gold producer in Australia.
But there’ll be life after Northern Star after a
period of time. My ultimate goal is to probably
mine copper in South America, and transplant some Australian
expertise over there. Personally, I’d like to have a big chunk of
the company that’s over there. But that’s years away.
They haven’t got the mining expertise that we’ve got here,
on smaller deposits. They’ve got massive deposits, and there’s
a lot of opportunity to take Australian expertise and mining
methods, and do extremely well. I have wanted to do that now
for about ten years. It’s not something that’s been overnight, but
again it’s just steps to get to that point. Maybe a time to get that
work/life balance! The way it is at the moment, I’d like to pull
that back a bit, but again – I do like mining, so it’s very hard.
It is not a job.
Minesite 2013
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