What happens when you try to change the way a mine works?
Spoiler: it isn’t as simple as buying some shiny new technology.
From Excel spreadsheets named FINAL_v7_USE_THIS_ONE.xlsx to real-time operational data, AI and connected mining systems, digital transformation is changing the way mines operate — but the biggest transformation isn’t happening in the technology. It’s happening in people.
Join Megan McCrea from Harmony Australasia for a behind-the-scenes, funny and honest look at what digital transformation actually looks like on a mine site.
Through real stories from Harmony’s transformation journey, Megan will explore why good technology can still fail, why people don’t necessarily resist change (but they do resist losing things), and what it takes to turn data into decisions that actually make a difference.
Most importantly, discover why the next generation of mining professionals has an enormous opportunity to reshape the industry — and why curiosity might be the most valuable skill you bring to the job

The industry tells early-career professionals to specialise fast and climb in a straight line. Drawing on her own career, which did neither, Nikky makes the case that the scattered path turned out to be the point.
Underground coal, surface coal, quarries, consulting, government and international research: a summer here, a few years there, a path that looked directionless while she was living it. What it actually built was pattern recognition. That breadth let her see a problem hiding in plain sight, one the specialists kept walking past, and gave her enough credibility across enough domains to do something about it.
This presentation argues that the capabilities modern technical leadership demands, including connecting ideas across disciplines, spotting emerging risk before it has a name, and holding the trust of operators and regulators alike, are forged by varied experience rather than developed despite it. Depth still matters. But for many people, depth is something breadth leads them to, not away from.
Sharing candid lessons from twenty years across operations, regulation, research and professional governance, the talk offers a practical way to think about careers built on both breadth and depth: how to recognise the openings at the edges of disciplines, how to convert wide exposure into a defensible niche, and why leadership tends to follow contribution, trust and influence rather than title.
As mining prepares for the next decade, it will need technically credible leaders who can see across the whole system. Attendees will leave with a clear framework for that kind of career, and a case for why the long way round is often the fastest route to real impact.