INSIDER MAGAZINE: Nickel West chief Jess Farrell a torchbearer for WA mining industry’s growing diversity

It has always been accepted in Jess Farrell’s family that the women work — just as hard, if not harder, than the men. Reflecting on her rise to becoming the first female leader of BHP’s expanding Nickel West division, Farrell believes this equality in her upbringing had a profound impact on the trajectory of her career. As a child, women worked around her constantly. They were ambitious while determined their goals would not get in the way of having families — a juggling act Farrell, who secured a big promotion and landed a new job over two stints of maternity leave, has also managed to achieve. Her late mother Helen was working full-time as a nurse when she met Farrell’s father, Tony. They struck a deal that Tony could go back to university provided that on the year he graduated, Helen would start their family. Farrell’s brother Timothy was born that year, followed by Farrell and her sister Catherine. Even so, Helen continued to undertake shift work through their childhood until she passed away when Farrell was nine — the same age as her own daughter is now. Her two aunts also worked full-time in successful careers. Dr Louise Farrell was one of only a handful of female trainees in obstetrics and gynaecology and relied on working job share to train post-graduation. She is now at the top of her field, even being recognised with a Medal of the Order of Australia last year. Farrell’s other aunt, Joanne, went into the mining industry in 1979 when conditions were vastly different to today — while still a male-dominated workforce, there is a greater level of awareness of the need to boost female representation. “It was always women working,” Farrell tells Insider magazine in her first wide-ranging interview since being appointed BHP Nickel West asset president more than two years ago. “I think you can be what you can’t see . . . but when you can see it, it makes it much more probable and likely that you’ll get there in that you’ve got a true north or a navigation point.” This focus on balancing intense jobs with having families has carried through to the next generation in Farrell, her sister — a respected architect who now lives in the UK — and her cousins. It is something the men in her family have simply grown accustomed to, Farrell says. “The equality and the respect of ‘how do you make a successful partnership’ is a critical part of what I grew up with, and I think that plays into how I lead,” she says. “I genuinely believe that you need to foster diversity and inclusion, but also, how do you work collaboratively and in partnership to make that successful.” As a leader, Farrell is passionate about supporting women and providing them opportunities where they can act as the “reference point” for others in the business. Her decision at the start of the year to promote Jacinta Parsons to become the first female general manager of the Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter generated much excitement among colleagues, Farrell says, building on previous appointments. Within a year of her becoming Nickel West asset president in August 2021, female representation of the senior leadership team was close to 50 per cent and 30 additional female leaders had been appointed across the business. Farrell has helped facilitate part-time and job-sharing in the senior leadership team, along with encouraging flexible working arrangements. In 2021, she fronted a landmark parliamentary inquiry into sexual harassment in WA’s fly-in, fly-out mining industry alongside iron ore asset president Brandon Craig following disturbing reports of incidents on BHP mine sites. Farrell credits her career progression to having a supportive partner who took on the lion’s share of caring for their two children while also working. They have what she describes as a “get out of jail” card — if a decision made by one parent isn’t working in six months time, they revert to the other person’s preferred option. Leaders who supported Farrell’s ambition to have a family while climbing the ladder also played a pivotal role in her advancement. She scored her first big mining promotion — a general manager role at Rio Tinto, where she spent more than a decade before joining BHP — six months into her first stint of maternity leave. “I would have thought early in my career that that was not possible, that you took time out in your career and you sort of went backwards,” she says. “I had seen a few of my colleagues have a similar experience — and it was recent at that time, but it was a similar experience.” Farrell also negotiated her first role at BHP as general manager of integrated production and remote operations during her second period of maternity leave. She was hired at the time by Edgar Basto, now the miner’s chief operating officer. A mining superpower Farrell remains motivated by the two things that originally lured her into the industry — the diverse nature of the job and the ability to participate in “meaningful work” that supports communities. “We’ve got a phenomenal mining footprint, incredible supply chain — so the mining delight still excites me because of what I get to play with and also lead. I just get energy from it.” After a stint of vacation work in mining, she started her career in the fly-in, fly-out industry at Rio before embracing residential work opportunities that began in the Kimberley. Farrell recalls debating the decision with her father, who strongly encouraged her to take the leap. Not only would it give her a better understanding of how the community works around the industry, he said, but it was also a smart decision financially. “Three years later I paid for the first deposit of my first home. We had a (Land Rover) Defender and a rooftop tent — life was pretty good,” she says. Farrell spent 13 years at Rio working in senior roles across the company’s copper, iron ore and diamonds divisions. Along with being highly capable, Farrell has never been one to shy away from getting her hands dirty, and it was this practical nature that made an impression on her superiors. While hosting a senior leader from the UK on site, she remembers receiving a panicked call about 8pm from the boss who had mistaken a frog in her toilet for a snake. “My claim to fame is I fished this green frog out from the toilet bowl,” Farrell jokes. “Six months later I got a call saying we’d like you to put your hat in the ring for this job in London . . . the person who was hiring was the (same) senior leader. Whilst you’ve got to demonstrate you’ve got performance and potential, I certainly learnt the value of sponsorship.” Farrell joined BHP in July 2019 and was promoted to Nickel West asset president in August 2021, replacing Eddy Haegel. She has taken on the mantle of continuing to drive the transformation of the nickel business, which has pivoted from being a supplier in the stainless steel sector to becoming one of the world’s leading suppliers to the battery metals market. Shortly after being appointed to the plum job at Australia’s biggest miner, Farrell oversaw the launch of BHP’s nickel sulphate plant in Kwinana — the first of its kind in the country. The product is a key ingredient in the lithium-ion batteries that drive electric vehicles, helping to increase an EV’s energy density and therefore the overall driving range. When BHP was transitioning the Nickel West business through 2017 to 2019, only about 5 to 10 per cent of its products went to the battery market. By the 2022 financial year, that figure stood about 85 per cent. BHP has nickel supply agreements with car giants such as Tesla, Ford Motor Company and Toyota and the International Energy Agency estimating there could be up to 400 million EVs globally by 2030 — up from about 16 million today. Building them could require up to 26 million tonnes of copper and 15Mt of nickel, ensuring a strong pipeline of work for the 3500 employees across the Goldfields and Kwinana nickel operations as well as the new OZ Minerals staff who have entered the business following the $9.6 billion acquisition of the copper miner this year. “That ability to take something in a West Australian context to then being (part) of a global stage and bringing two industries together is quite phenomenal,” Farrell says. “Mining is genuinely our superpower . . . we underestimate that until we sit at a table in Sweden or London and have these conversations where people are just enthralled about the expertise that we bring. We’ve got this incredible ability — whether it’s the skills or the decades of experience in mining, smelting and refining — that really serves us well.” Farrell spent much time with European car manufacturers understanding what consumers are looking for during her first year in the role. She was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the raw materials experts they employ are Australian. Besides frogs, Farrell’s other claim to fame is that she is the only asset president to have been invited to meet Swedish royalty, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel, during their last visit to Australia. She says their interest is further proof of the “phenomenal” opportunity that exists in critical minerals. Critical moment Farrell believes Australia’s success in expanding its critical minerals industry will come down to securing reliable partners who have experience in downstream processing and skilled workers, as well as fostering interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. The mining of so-called “future-facing” materials such as lithium and rare earths requires vastly different skill sets to bulk commodities like iron ore and coal. Australia, known for having a “dig and ship” mentality towards the resources sector, has the right ambition but is out of its depth in the downstream space compared to other countries such as the US, Korea and Japan. “We need to continue to make sure that we have a good landscape competitively, sustainably, and that we can still be a place in which investment and partnership is seen as good business,” Farrell says. BHP leaders have repeatedly voiced concerns about the Albanese Government’s industrial relations shake-up. The company has been one of the most vocal critics of the proposed “same job, same pay” reforms, which would require employers to pay labour hire workers the same rate as direct employees. Farrell says the burgeoning critical minerals industry requires a set of “stable fundamentals” concerning government policy and a competitive investment climate. The past 18 months has been telling in terms of the challenges facing the industry — particularly around project cost blowouts and competition for investment stemming from landmark policies such as the US Inflation Reduction Act, she says. “I think those things are absolutely required to stay on the front foot of . . . (Australian) government, business and communities (need to work) collaboratively together to effectively accelerate.” Nickel and copper, while widely recognised for the important role they will play in the electrification of green economies, have not yet made their way to Australia’s Critical Minerals List. Those in the industry like Farrell are hopeful it is only a matter of time given recognition in other countries. The European Union included copper and nickel as strategic minerals earlier this year, while the US added nickel to its critical minerals list in late 2021. “We’ve been working very collaboratively with government. Obviously we note that in every other country, nickel broadly is on the critical minerals list,” Farrell says. “What’s been fantastic is the excitement, the energy around critical minerals, the advocacy; now we really need that to transition into the collective strategy and the focus to support it.” Farrell’s immediate priority has been on integrating the former OZ Minerals team from the West Musgrave copper-nickel project, located about 1300km north-east of Perth close to the State’s border with the Northern Territory and South Australia. Once completed, BHP hopes the project will allow it to replace about 30 per cent of ore production that comes from third parties such as Mincor and IGO, bolstering its nickel supply chain. It will initially produce up to 12Mt a year. BHP is also considering upgrading the 50-year-old Kalgoorlie smelter to process more nickel from its northern mining operations. It is expected to detail processing plans for its WA nickel assets this financial year. Nickel demand The nickel business will likely never be a major revenue-earner for BHP but the company still considers it to be a key plank in its response to “mega trends” like decarbonisation, urbanisation and rising living standards. Nickel West delivered $US57 million, or less than 1 per cent, of BHP’s underlying earnings in the year to June. The nickel price has fallen on hard times of late, having slumped about 40 per cent since December to the start of October following a surge in Indonesian production. Farrell, however, remains bullish on long-term demand. She sees Nickel West’s sustainability credentials as a point of difference, pointing out the business is a top performer in terms of CO2 emissions per tonne of nickel. “You can just see it in terms of society,” she says. “There’s an increasing growing social consciousness.” Rocketing demand for lithium and nickel can be seen in the number of Teslas and other electric vehicles that are coming to dominate WA roads, as more drivers seek to reduce their carbon footprint and find alternatives to soaring petrol prices. Farrell doesn’t need to look any further than the number of EV charging stations at the Kwinana refinery, which have trebled in recent years. “We had two and then we went to four and then six charge stations and they’ve got electric vehicles in every single one of those bays,” she says. “You see that significant shift even in the local consumer.” The mining supply chain has never been more intricate and is a source of wonder to Farrell, who oversees a “mine-to-metal business” at Nickel West. This includes open cut and underground operations in the Northern Goldfields; concentrators at Mt Keith, Leinster and Kambalda; the Kalgoorlie smelter, which produces nickel-in-matte; the Kwinana refinery, which produces nickel metal as powder or briquettes and the nickel sulphate plant, which converts nickel powder into nickel sulphate for the battery market. Ensuring the safety of so many workers in such a large operation demands that Farrell also take care of herself. Physically, she tries to cut out caffeine where she can — an ongoing battle, especially during her trips to site — and relies on yoga and pilates for a mental break. But her real love, she says, is anything that gets her on the water and spending quality time with her husband, Nathan, and their two children. “I joke but I genuinely love sea animals more than perhaps land animals. I love being in the water, whether it’s down the beach with the kids, swimming, to diving and snorkelling or on a boat.” If there is one thing Farrell wants to leave as part of her legacy, it is to give women and men the same opportunities that she was afforded. The ability to live remotely, in different locations and to lead businesses in a diverse range of commodities has helped sustain her passion for mining. She wants to grow a safe and respectful workforce that encourages employees to “leverage their superpower” and expertise to be able to share a similar experience. “At times, that means that you have to intervene; you have to take different strategies to allow for people to be seen and for the ability to really get the best out of people.”