{"id":5642,"date":"2016-04-28T07:57:07","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T23:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/mining-blood-pilbara-minerals-ceo-ken-brinsden-shares-secrets-success-mining-industry\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:07:36","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:07:36","slug":"mining-blood-pilbara-minerals-ceo-ken-brinsden-shares-secrets-success-mining-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/mining-blood-pilbara-minerals-ceo-ken-brinsden-shares-secrets-success-mining-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Mining in the blood: Pilbara Minerals CEO Ken Brinsden shares his secrets to success"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ken Brinsden is a mining engineer with more than 20 years\u2019 experience in surface and underground mining projects.<\/p>\n

Brinsden graduated from Curtin Western Australian School of Mines in 1993, and has since created an extensive career profile working with companies including WMC Resources, Normandy, Central Norseman Gold Corporation and Iluka Resources.<\/p>\n

He was Managing Director of Atlas Iron for more than three years, and continues his role there as Non Executive Director.<\/p>\n

\"K.Brinsden\"<\/p>\n

During his time at Atlas Iron, Brinsden contributed to the rapid growth and development of the company from a \u201cjunior explorer to iron order producer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company stayed ahead of its competitors thanks to the \u201camazing culture and team spirit that was, and still is, evident there,\u201d Brinsden says. \u201cAdd to that a healthy dose of innovation and you get a pretty special combination that drives outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe developed five mines in six years while at Atlas. I doubt there are many mining companies globally that could claim that record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Brinsden\u2019s career in mining is undoubtedly impressive, he explains he never had grand plans when it came to his future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t done much in the way of career planning. I\u2019ve generally been working hard in the role I was in, and then delivering results,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce that happens, the plan seems to get sorted for you as those results get noticed by people who matter in the progress of your career. I\u2019ve watched people over the years who are more focused on career progression than they are on the results that they deliver. I can assure you that progressing your career is only related to the latter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brinsden believes emotional integrity is also important to employ in any profession, particularly when working with or managing groups of people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t stress enough how important that emotional intelligence is,\u201d he says. \u201cKnowing your own strengths and weaknesses, and being able to see them in others is crucial to leadership and building successful teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brinsden\u2019s interpersonal skills extend beyond the mining grounds with his long held interest in community development. The success of Iluka Resources was in part due to the strong bonds Brinsden established with the south west Victorian communities within which the company worked. In 2005 Iluka Resources received the \u2018Strzelecki Gold Award\u2019 for excellence in community engagement.<\/p>\n

He was also Director of Manna<\/a> for three years, a not-for-profit volunteer Victorian organisation that assists homeless and disadvantaged individuals and families.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing honest, I don\u2019t think the mining industry on the whole has done a great job integrating with the broader community,\u201d Brinsden says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course there are notable exceptions and credit where it\u2019s due, however you can always do more. Through deeper engagement the community should get exposure and benefit out of an industry that is so important to the WA economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brinden\u2019s interest in mining was instilled in him by his family, who have a long history with the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad is an electrical engineer, however before him grandfathers (on both sides of the family) and my great grandfather were deeply involved in mining as managers or educators,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would have to say mining was in the blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brinsden entered the mining industry shortly after the gold boom of the 1980s, and though mining has always been a part of his life, there were still challenges involved with taking on significant responsibility at a young age.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking after many peoples\u2019 safety, managing big projects and being accountable to shareholders are all serious challenges and not to be sneezed at,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs is the case with most things in life though, you are not on your own. There is always a team, and my experience is that almost universally the people involved want to help and given an environment to thrive, they often will. With that in mind, a problem shared is a problem halved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the problems and challenges faced by today\u2019s mining engineers are how to remain relevant and move forward in an industry that is experiencing a decline.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly it\u2019s a tough period for the industry, however part of me says it had to happen, as the previous decade had led to unsustainable cost increases that were starting to get \u2018baked-in\u2019,\u201d says Brinsden, who is optimistic about Australia\u2019s mining future.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnology is having as big an influence as ever on the global community. That brings disruption to classic industries and I would say that presents opportunities in natural resources as well. What are those commodities that are set to be in demand as a result of the decline of fossil fuels, new transport technology, renewable energies and more? That\u2019s where the opportunities lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brinsden\u2019s current work with Pilbara Minerals involves a remarkable lithium discovery at the Pilgangoora Project in the North Pilbara, and progressing and improving on his company\u2019s development and collaborative success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pilbara Minerals CEO and WASM graduate Ken Brinsden shares his secrets to success in the mining industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4182,"featured_media":5643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-5642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"Mining Engineering","qualification":"Bachelor of Engineering (Mining Engineering)","link":"http:\/\/courses.curtin.edu.au\/course_overview\/undergraduate\/mining-engineering","description":"","faculty":false}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/K.Brinsden-720x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Zoe","last_name":"Taylor","display_name":"Zoe Taylor"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 18:25:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5642"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=5642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}