Congratulations to our BHP finalists in the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia (CME) Women in Resources Awards:

Jessica Farrell, Nickel West Asset President, Women in Resources Champion;
Samantha Langley, Principal Business Development Climate Change, Technological Innovation; and
BHP’s FutureFit Academy, Outstanding Company Initiative.
Now in its 14th year, the Women in Resources Awards recognises the power of gender diversity in Western Australia’s mining and resources sector.

CME received more than 110 nominations for this year’s awards and the quality of those is reflected by a strong group of finalists, who occupy a wide variety of on and off-site roles at mining and resources operations around WA.

Congratulations, and best of luck to all the finalists. Winners will be announced at the 2023 WIRA presentation dinner on Friday 31 March.

More about our BHP finalists:

BHP’s FutureFit Academy – Outstanding Company Initiative

The BHP FutureFit Academy concept provides BHP with the opportunity to develop and permanently employ more than 2500 apprentices and trainees over five years, and it is already achieving important diversity outcomes, with more than 83 per cent of people entering the program being women. Completion rates within the program are also above 80 per cent and learners have reported feeling safe, engaged and enabled in perception surveys.

The BHP FutureFit Academy model not only assists BHP in progressing towards its workforce targets but also helps meet whole-of-sector needs, in an environment in which skills pressures are being felt across a variety of industries and there is a strong emphasis on preparing the workforce of tomorrow with skills that will be needed for mining’s future.

Jess Farrell - Women in Resources Champion Award Finalist

As BHP Nickel West’s first female Asset President, Jessica Farrell is committed to shifting the culture of what might be considered a male-dominated workplace to a more inclusive environment. She inspires others by offering a strong voice and sound advice on a broad range of business issues, from inclusion and diversity to frontline challenges and areas for improvement. The positive impact of Jess’ leadership has been felt by all employees.

Within a year of her appointment to her current role, female representation on BHP Nickel West’s senior leadership team was up to close to 50 per cent and 30 additional female leaders had been appointed across the business. Mining Villages at Mt Keith and Leinster have had extensive security upgrades, while Jessica has helped facilitate part time and job sharing in the senior leadership team and encouraged flexible working arrangements that support a balance of family and personal commitments.

In addition to mentoring aspiring female and male leaders across the industry and establishing an Inclusion and Diversity Council for Nickel West, Jessica has used external industry platforms to call for more visible representation of females in leadership roles; participated in the WA Parliamentary Inquiry into sexual harassment against women in the FIFO mining industry; and is a sponsor for BHP Camps to Communities Challenge, which invites people to collaborate with BHP to reinvent the experience of BHP’s site-based workforce.

Jessica is also a strong advocate for the LGBTQI+ community as well as increasing representation of Indigenous leaders at BHP.

Sam Langley – Technological Innovation Award

After studying environmental science, Samantha Langley started her career in a regulatory role but soon realised that she wanted to protect the environment by creating change within industry. That desire saw her move to Kalgoorlie sight unseen to get her start in mining and more than 20 years later it has her leading what could be one of the most important global developments in tackling climate change.

At BHP Nickel West, Samantha is working with a team that will employ technological solutions to see whether the tailings storage dam at the company’s Mount Keith operations can be used as a giant industrial sink for carbon dioxide. The science behind the chemical process – known as mineral carbonation – is proven at a laboratory level but testing it in the field at scale will be a world-first.

Sam has brought together a team of engineers, geochemists and policy and climate change experts from within BHP and engaged with specialists and researchers around the world as the project moves towards implementation. The potential of successful mineral carbonation at global scale is enormous, with estimates it could offset as much as 10 per cent of the world’s emissions. The process is also capable to producing zero carbon cement and building products.