WA is about to experience a massive deficit in high-quality executives

If even half the proposed developments proceed over the next three years, WA will exhaust its already thin pool of executive talent

We're about to experience a surge in demand for high-quality executives.

If only half of the developments mooted across the next three years proceed, WA will be scraping the already near-empty barrel of Senior Project Executives and C Suite members.  

The pressure is unlikely to come from mining alone.

What's driving the executive talent crunch? 

Mining is already busy.

But the surges in demand are already building across power generation projects, data centres, wind farms, solar farms, and defence. 

Throw in general public infrastructure to support a population, along with projects spread out across a vast and remote state, and it'll give you an idea of what we're up against.

All of these things require highly skilled and experienced senior executives aimed at research and development or in the resource sectors case, discovery. Then we need to assess projects, deal with financial markets and finally execute on the plans.

As most of us who have been around for a while will know, some of these projects will not get up.

However, in mining alone, we are seeing many more greenfield projects with business cases and NPVs that are robust enough today to justify a thorough assessment process.

The C-Suite talent pool will shrink

Each such project alone will require a senior project team and C-Suite covering technical, legal, commercial and compliance / ESG related elements, and given we’re competing for a relatively small pool of highly experienced people capable of taking complex projects from concept through to delivery, the results will be felt widely. 

In fact, it's already starting. 

• Demand for the best of this talent will be substantial with the top talent being freer than ever to pick and choose which projects they devote the next stage of their career to. 

• Promoters will need to look further afield, be that overseas or into other sectors and look at lessor experienced people, but hopefully stars on the rise. This introduces more risk. 

• Anybody making choices about who they throw their hat into the ring with, need to do their due diligence, both on the employee and the employer side. As MPI has warned many times in the past, these periods also tend to see those less scrupulous operators come out to play. The ones who are only interested in ‘mining the market’. Not that they will admit it of course.     

When several markets move this quickly, there will always be people looking to capitalise on it. For employers and executives alike, the question we must ask isn't as simple as, “Can we find the right person?” or “Can I find the right opportunity?” 

It's “Is this the right project, and are these the right people to build it with?” 

Excitement, caution or both?

This is an incredibly exciting time to be in the great state of Western Australia, but if you are already in a senior leadership role be prepared to be stretched and buyer beware, whatever side of the deal you are on.  

Should even a proportion of these projects progress, they will add another layer of demand to an executive talent pool already under serious pressure. 

At MPI, our major business is sourcing talent for the mining and the related engineering and service supply sectors. Please contact us if you feel we may be able to help.  

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