Women in Mining Spotlight: Jeannette McGill

McGill was the former Head of Mining Services at Telstra and former Head of Technology & Innovation: Platinum at Anglo American.

She has a PhD from the Colorado School of Mines and in 2016 was identified as one of the Top 100 most influential Women in Mining globally. She is also a successful high-altitude mountaineer and was the first South African woman to summit Manaslu — at 8,163 metres.

McGill shared some career highlights and industry insights in this exclusive interview.

MDC: Through the years you’ve been in the industry, how have you seen it change or evolve?

McGill: The industry has had these pendulums of where we go from a commodity cycle perspective to how the technology has changed.  I think globally we’ve all gone on to appreciate the importance of what technology can do. I think now we’re going to this migration away from some of the fundamental mining things and to the importance of technology and sustainability.

MDC: What challenges and opportunities do you see for women in the mining industry?

McGill:  From a woman in mining perspective, 20 years ago, because there was a dearth of females in roles, there was quite a bit of fast tracking from a skills perspective and sometimes at a detriment to the poor guys that had been doing a lot of time underground, and they had an opportunity to move up the ladder. When women didn’t want to work underground, but the mines had to keep women on board — they were fast tracked into roles.

And there is a cohort of women globally — we know we’ve done our time underground —but there have been other people that have been fast tracked through the system. I think that what’s happening at the moment is that an equilibrium has been reached and it’s about solid skills base.

We definitely have to rely on a solid set of fundamental skills to underpin our careers in mining. People now realize that you now have to do your time, be it in a technology space, be it in an engineering space, be it in fundamental mining, geology, and that these are the some of the really core skills that you can then bring to the table and then pursue a career which takes you into elevated positions.

MDC: Can you tell us about your advocacy for safety in mines?

McGill:  Safety is absolutely profound. When I was working in one of my first mines, the mine manager decided that because I was the only woman working in the mine that once a month would I please play tour guide and take the wives of the miners underground to show them where their husbands worked and create a broader sense of community in the small mining village mining town in a remote part of South Africa.

One day one of the wives, as we were coming out from underground, she grabbed my hand and she clung to me and she said  “Jeannette, please, I need you to promise me that you’ll make sure that my husband comes out from underground every single day safely. I cannot afford to lose him.”

We worked deep underground and the working conditions were pretty severe. These were the times where there was quite a high death rate in these large labor intensive underground mines, and I was struck by this woman’s plea and the sense of helplessness. It was a case of, ‘I can try my best’.

In one of the first mechanized mines I had been in I was concerned there was this piece of hanging wall that had not been correctly supported and I wrote this in my report. A week later we came underground and a massive piece of rock had flattened the utility vehicle. Very fortunately, none of the surveyors were in it at the time, but the car was now sort of a metal pancake. The next day I went underground the guys immediately asked me for my opinion. It’s sad that it took such a significant event.

I do think that that has been an underlying [reason] why I’ve taken on corporate and executive roles where it’s all around the support of change and what we do with change through technology. My previous role was doing last mile connectivity on mine sites to keep the autonomous trucks on the network. Now, at AspenTech, I’m growing the metals and mining division around software, which makes mines safer. And it supports the autonomy and these advanced technologies that are in place at mine sites.

By looking at a photograph of what the mining terrains used to look like, and now being able to look at these above in control rooms, and remote operating centers — this career in mining technology has been my way of answering that woman and trying to keep people safe.

MDC: What do you think some of the biggest misconceptions about the mining industry are?

McGill: I think the biggest misconception is that it’s a quick place to grow a career. The misconception is that, ‘ok one day I want to do mining and the next day I can be the CEO or owner of a mining company. I do think that globally we’ve had the sense that it’s a quick career path, but I think that there is this appreciation that needs to come through around time and experience and that’s probably one of the misconceptions and it’s comes from the mentoring that I do.

There’s a misconception about the patience that this career does require. I think now people are realising that you have to do your time, be it from these ancillary entry points, be it if you’ve got the fundamental stuff. In the first 10 years of their careers, it can be disillusioning that they’re still sitting around doing similar things, but I think they just have to be a reality check around the pace a career will take. That is predicated on a requirement of some significant knowledge and some of that knowledge comes not from books and degrees. That knowledge comes from being in the operating environment and just learning by doing.