Australia’s mining and resources sector is being asked to deliver more than at any point in a generation, yet the leadership bench available to deliver it has never been thinner: mining engineering enrolments have fallen by roughly 63% since 2014, close to half of the current engineering and technical workforce is expected to reach retirement age within the decade, and the pipeline of executives ready to step into chief executive and chief operating roles has not kept pace. At the same time the sector sits at the centre of global geopolitics, with China’s control of the processing of rare earths, tungsten and antimony matched by the Australian Government’s own scrutiny of Chinese investment in the sector. Government is both accelerant and handbrake here, backing a $1.2 billion Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve and Future Made in Australia incentives on one hand, while enforcing state moratoria such as the NSW State ban on new greenfield thermal coal mines, Foreign Investment Review Board scrutiny and Security of Critical Infrastructure obligations on the other. Whether an organisation is building a business around a critical mineral that has moved from relative obscurity to genuine financial opportunity, a gold producer looking beyond an over heated local talent pool, or an ASX listed company connecting Australian capital and governance to a copper project in South America, the appointment made now will shape the next decade, and there has never been less room to get it wrong.

Very few executive search professional shave worked at scale across both the eastern and western Australian resources markets, and that dual perspective sits at the centre of how Omera Partners ’mining and resources practice operates. Over more than 20 years our Mining and Resources Partner, Joss Godbold,  has built a genuinely national network, spanning Bowen Basin and Queensland coal, gold, copper, critical minerals and uranium on the east coast, and the gold, iron ore and lithium landscape in Western Australia, meaning searches consistently reach beyond the same recycled group of names that most searches return to. That reach is amplified by Omera Partners’ standing as a genuine board search specialist, where the chair and non executive director relationships the firm builds give it privileged, trusted access to proven and in demand operators who never appear on a job board and are only ever moved through a direct, personal introduction, very often on the recommendation of a board member who has worked with them before.

Mining is a genuinely global industry with a fixed geography. An ore body cannot be moved, so it is the skills, not the assets, that travel, and the first thing to establish on any brief is how portable the capability a role genuinely needs actually is. It is also an industry that is simple at its core but highly complex in practice, with real specificity between coal and precious metals, underground and open cut, exploration and steady state operation, so a brief that treats all mining experience as interchangeable will miss. Mining is a surprisingly closed loop as well, even the largest names are unknown to anyone outside the sector, which keeps the people who matter invisible through conventional channels and reachable only through networks built inside it. Omera Partners’ coverage is deepest exactly where demand is now most acute, in coal, in critical minerals, and in the emerging mining companies scaling up after foundational investment from major institutions.

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Market perspective

Only a few years ago mining was in a human capital consolidation phase, stripping out cost and shrinking work forces. It has since swung hard the other way into a boom in demand at every level, from the pit to the boardroom, and that surge has collided head on with a generational rejection of the industry by younger talent, leaving a genuine shortage of people and, just as damaging, a shortage of the global experience and willingness to move around that the sector actually runs on.

Since 2025 the geopolitics of critical minerals and energy security have thrust mining back to the front and centre of global politics, economics and investment, and the uncomfortable truth is that most mining work forces, and executive teams above all, are neither equipped nor deep enough to cope with what is now being asked of them.

Questions boards and chief executives should ask before appointing a senior mining and resources leader

1.   What skills does this role genuinely require, and which of them are mining specific versus capabilities that could be drawn from a deeper pool in another sector?

2.   If the plan is to grow, where does the leadership actually come from? There are simply not enough people in the industry, and the answer rarely lies within the organisation or in the junior ranks alone.

3.   Are we running a local search for what is now a global role? Restricting a Brisbane or Perth based shortlist to local names in a clearly global industry is a self imposed disadvantage.

4.   Have we widened the pool through cross pollination, across other commodities, asset types and geographies? The best talent comes from the deepest pools, and breadth brings variability, deeper skills and more levers to pull for the business.

Working with Omera Partners

Omera Partners advises boards and chief executives on senior leadership appointments across Australian mining and resources, from coal and precious metals to critical minerals, copper and the emerging companies scaling up after institutional investment. When a single appointment can determine whether an organisation secures the leadership it needs in a market where proven names are scarce and geopolitics now shapes commodity strategy, the search deserves a firm with a genuinely national network built over decades, not one confined to the usual local names. That is the standard Omera Partners brings to every mining and resources appointment.

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