Boardroom Confidential with Brad Welsh

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BENNETT MASON

Hello and welcome to Boardroom Conversations, a podcast from the Australian Institute of Company Directors. I'm Bennett Mason. In each episode, we'll have candid conversations with some of Australia's top directors, leaders and experts delving into their backgrounds and discussing many of the key issues that today's boardrooms are grappling with. Our guest this time is Brad Welsh. He's a director with health insurer nib plus, the CEO and founder of Marr, while Brad's also the CEO of Energy Resources of Australia and was previously a chief advisor to the CEO of Rio Tinto before joining the mining giant, he was a political staffer working for both the New South Wales Premier and in the Prime Minister's office. Brad, thanks so much for joining us.

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BRAD WELSH

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

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BENNETT MASON

Now you have had a fascinating career journey. We talked a little bit about it then, but you began as a child protection officer, as we said you were in politics. You've worked on these major resource projects in the outback, and now you're also in the boardroom. So, can you tell us a little bit about that path and what helped to shape your journey?

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BRAD WELSH

I think for me, I've had to reinvent my career, probably 3 or 4 times. And every time I've learnt something, every time I've kind of, I've always been driven by a really big curiosity about how things work, what makes things kind of move? What makes them stop. And it's been such an incredible journey to work in the highest office in the land, to lead a company, to now be a director on a on a nib. And then to be embarking on Mawal is, very nervous is one way to describe it. But also, very ambitious.

00:02:04:14 - 00:02:26:04

BENNETT MASON

I want to talk a little bit more about some of those roles, we're going to detail all of them. But you said a moment ago that you've reinvented your career. That's not easy. That's a real challenge. What made you go through those reinventions and what have you learned about managing, I guess, your own adaptability?

00:02:26:06 - 00:02:52:16

BRAD WELSH

I've always been ambitious and always tried to understand what's the work you need to do to unlock your full potential. And in some cases, it's meant going backwards and kind of into a junior role and in order to go forward. In my experience, some windows only open for a certain period of time.

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And you've got to seize the moment and kind of go through those windows when they open, because they might not be open in the next month or the next day or the next kind of opportunity. At the time, it kind of felt like I cobbled together these reinventions, so if I was to say that I kind of planned them and did them in a sequential way, that's probably not true. Like, a window opened, I saw the opportunity. I thought it was an opportunity to grow my experience, my delivery, my capability and went for it.

00:03:24:16 - 00:03:39:16

BENNETT MASON

You've moved across these different sectors, industries, leading companies, advising political leaders. How do you think all those experiences have shaped you as a leader or a manager?

00:03:39:18 - 00:03:58:20

BRAD WELSH

Yeah, it's probably given me a really solid breadth of not just the industry but the country. I mean, in those reinventions, I lived in Sydney, in Redfern. I grew up, I lived in Parkes in regional New South Wales. I lived in Weipa, which is one of the most remote communities in the country. Gets cut off in the wet season.

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So, I lived there for ten years. We lived in Perth and Darwin. And so, I think it's kind of introduced me to the breadth of Australia as well as the breadth of different industries and different companies. So, I'm incredibly thankful that I've had those experiences and I've been able to kind of shape everything to come together in this, offering around Mawal and this next kind of chapter for me.

00:04:26:02 - 00:04:47:07

BENNETT MASON

You spent a long time in roles with Rio Tinto. And as we said, you were the chief adviser to the CEO on indigenous affairs. That came in the aftermath of Juukan Gorge. What was it like working with Rio Tinto at that time, especially in that role?

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BRAD WELSH

It was quite a difficult role. And, I mean, it was a difficult time for a lot of people in Rio Tinto. I'd worked my way up to becoming an acting general manager of operations. And kind of described myself, and still do, as a senior leader who's indigenous, not a senior indigenous leader.

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And so, for me, that was a decision that I had to kind of think about and say, well, this is a really important issue for the company. It's really important for the communities in which we operate. It's important to our future. And for that reason, kind of jumped into it, at least temporarily, for about 12 months.

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And then kind of, went into the mainstream type of role. I think it was incredibly humbling. Juukan Gorge was more than a cultural heritage incident. It was, for all of the communities that hosted mining across the country and if not the world, we can't point to one that's wealthy.

00:05:51:15 - 00:06:08:19

We can point to communities that have a lot of cash or royalties or, but wealth is a set of behaviours, and wealth is, it's the way you kind of interact and these communities expected wealth from these projects. And they haven't been able to get it.

00:06:08:19 - 00:06:42:03

BRAD WELSH

So, I think for me it was kind of an exploration of where we went wrong as an industry. I think Rio and other companies, are doing a lot to try and repair that relationship, which will take a long time. But it’s also got to come with some recognition that we have an obligation to build capital and risk management and wealth behaviours into host communities so that they can be self-sufficient and they can stand up and they can be enjoying as much as we do this resources boom that Australia's going through.

00:06:44:03 - 00:06:57:06

BENNETT MASON

What do you think Rio learnt through that experience, through the incident, as you called it? And I guess not just Rio, not just the mining sector, but what the Australian companies learned through all that.

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BRAD WELSH

Yeah, look, I think for Australian companies, I mean, we always know that trust is very difficult and long to build and very easy to break. And that's not a new thing. I think it was a deep recognition that we expected better, our communities expect better. And I think the whole nation and if not the world, had a look and said, look, okay, we can understand mining is a critical part of Australia's identity.

00:07:29:02 - 00:07:48:00

It's lifted the wealth and values of every house in Australia. And so, we should be proud of that as a nation. That's something. But we also expect it to lift the wealth and lift the support for the host communities. And I think, Juukan was a cultural heritage incident. But it was more than that.

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It was kind of really finding out that we hadn't been great partners. And that's the whole industry, and we have to do something different so that we unlock a shared future for those communities. And I think for me, I think the Australian community and the international community expects the mining industry to be better and expects companies to be better.

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I think they can live with the importance of the mining industry, the wealth that it generates. But you've got to make sure that you're looking after your stakeholders, your constituents, your host communities, and your customers.

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BENNETT MASON

On those host communities where these major projects are, you said some of them have a lot of cash through royalties, but none of them have become wealthy. What do you mean by that? And what's the blockage? What's the problem? And how can it be addressed?

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BRAD WELSH

I think it's a great question. Look, a culture cannot survive unless it manages capital and risk. And, when we think about the Aboriginal community more broadly and the indigenous community in Australia, the largest kind of contribution is in some way benevolent. It's in some, it’s government funding or it's benevolent funding, and it's not really expecting the community to manage capital and risk, and for me, the realisation, that your cultural identity is central to your ability to manage capital and risk.

00:09:22:10 - 00:09:41:02

So, your cultural identity comes out of your ability to manage capital and risk. And if we think about kind of, what do we expect out of any culture, I mean, look at any culture across the planet. But look at the Chinese culture. I mean, they’ve managed capital and risk, and it hasn't necessarily been in a Western way.

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It's been in a uniquely Chinese way. They feel ten times more Chinese today than they did before I started that journey. And so, for me, if we can kind of understand that and help communities win and lose, that's the clear expectation of kind of managing capital and risk. We can move them into an asset ownership space.

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And so, for me, wealth is about a set of behaviours. And obviously cash helps but it's a set of behaviours. I mean if you think about it, when the First Fleet turned up in Australia, they turned up to a wealthy country. They turned up to a country that had really strong work ethic, had really clear rules around cultural identity, and in some respect, the people who arrived here were the poor people.

00:10:25:22 - 00:10:47:22

They were the poor people from England who couldn't be fed. They were prisoners. And out of that, we've built an amazing country together. And so, I think, for me, if we don't work on those behaviours and teaching modern capital and risk management, then we won't allow communities to realise their full potential. And so that's kind of what wealth means for me.

00:10:47:24 - 00:11:11:02

BENNETT MASON

Let's talk a bit more about that mix of cultures in Australia. Of course we have Western cultures, systems of governance. And then we also have this ancient, vibrant First Nations culture. Do you think those two cultures, when it comes to corporate governance, are meshing together well? And what can they learn from each other?

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BRAD WELSH

I think they can. I think they can mesh well. I don't think they have meshed well, if I'm honest. And if you think about, I mean, capital and risk management are global languages. They're not Western languages. They're not Aboriginal languages. They're global languages. And we're in the Asian century and a lot of values in Aboriginal culture align quite strongly with many Asian cultures, like Japan, for example.

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And so, we have an ability to unlock our competitive advantage as a nation by unlocking our shared values. And I think, if we could realise our full competitive advantage as a nation, because every nation is trying to find its competitive advantage. We're the ones that straddle Asia and the West, like we're a Western culture in the middle of Asia, and that should be an incredibly powerful position that we enjoy. But we don't, we're trying to be one or the other.

00:12:10:17 - 00:12:30:19

And so, for me, I think they can come together. I think, if you can kind of come at it centrally and say that a culture has to manage capital and risk in order to survive, they can do it in their own cultural way. But it doesn't take away that you've got to have capital and risk management in order for your identity to survive.

00:12:30:21 - 00:13:05:08

BENNETT MASON

I want to take a, I guess, very specific look at capital and risk. In 2022, you became the chief executive of Energy Resources of Australia or ERA. Now for people who aren’t familiar with ERA, the company has been rehabilitating a former uranium mine in the Northern Territory. So that is an extraordinarily complex project. What have you learnt doing that work about capital, but especially about risk management?

00:13:05:09 - 00:13:34:13

BRAD WELSH

Yeah, yeah. It's an incredible story for the nation, Ranger uranium mine. I mean it was it was opened by the Commonwealth, in an agreement with the Japanese government at the time to supply uranium. It was done against the wishes of the traditional owners. And we're setting a standard of rehabilitation that would bring that land back to the world listed heritage standard for Kakadu.

00:13:34:13 - 00:14:02:18

So, it's surrounded by Kakadu, but it's separate from Kakadu. I mean, that's an incredible standard to aspire to. We're refilling pits. We're coming back up to a national park standard, which is incredibly challenging, so very hard to estimate. We have 8,000 shareholders on our books that have varying kinds of views on the company's performance and the standards.

00:14:02:20 - 00:14:25:17

I think for us, it's something that we've been committed to for a long time, and we've been carrying through that commitment. But bringing a former mine site up to one that you would not be able to recognise, distinct from the rest of Kakadu, will be an incredible achievement for ERA and an incredible achievement for the team that have dedicated their careers to doing that.

00:14:25:17 - 00:14:54:15

So, I'm optimistic that we’ll do it. But I learnt an enormous amount as CEO and MD of that business, managing and working with regulators, working with traditional owners, working with shareholders. So, for me, I'm much better for that experience. But heavily regulated. I mean, uranium in a national park is always going to be heavily regulated. So, probably really thankful for everything that I've been able to pick up in that business.

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BENNETT MASON

Being chief executive at ERA, It's a hard job. It's a complex job. What made you say yes when the offer came about?

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BRAD WELSH

I think the opportunity to lead such a historic business. I think the complexity was a bit of an attraction as well. You can't unlock your curiosity unless you pick up complex tasks. If you want to pick the easiest tasks to do, you're probably not going to develop to your full potential as a leader.

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And so, for me, seeing something that was complex, seeing something that could deliver such a strong legacy, building my skills in the listed environment was quite attractive. And so that was probably the real attraction to the role, the opportunity to work with traditional owners and to work on a legacy asset was also a good.

00:15:55:11 - 00:16:10:08

BENNETT MASON

ERA’s work isn't just complex, it's also very, I guess, by its nature, long term, it's going to take a long time to do this rehabilitation. What did that teach you about weighing up long term goals and short-term goals?

00:16:10:08 - 00:16:42:14

BRAD WELSH

The longer term the goal, the harder it is to estimate. And so, if you've got a long-term aspiration, regardless of whether it's uranium mine, it's very hard to kind of forecast and estimate that goal. So, the benefit in having a series of short-term goals to know that you're on the right track is that you can measure, estimate, deliver, record improvements, celebrate wins.

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So, you've got to have the right mix of both for me. If you always talk about the horizon and you never kind of talk about today, you run the risk of kind of losing the team's momentum today. If you only focus on the next couple of sessions or the next couple of stages, then you actually won't hit the long-term goal.

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So, you've got to for me, you've got to find that balance between kind of long and short term. But you've got to kind of enjoy the switching between both as well. So yeah, I think it’s very difficult, especially when you're talking long range.

00:17:21:02 - 00:17:36:00

BENNETT MASON

We've been speaking a lot about your executive career, but I also wanted to talk about your board positions. You're now a non-executive director as well. How did your first board position come about and why did you want to be a director?

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BRAD WELSH

Yeah, my first my first NED role was nib, which was July 2023. I mean, I'd been MD of ERA before that. I think of for me it was about a broader impact and understanding a different industry and probably a bit more of a reinvention as well. If you think about the health industry, I mean, it's critical to not just First Nations communities.

00:18:03:02 - 00:18:31:20

It's critical to the way we see ourselves as Australians. And understanding private health and understanding a private capital is something that was quite an attraction. I mean, the nib board is amazing and highly skilled. So, some exposure to those directors has been phenomenal for me as well. One real attraction was, as we were going through the recruitment process, we talked a lot about being a senior leader who's indigenous, not a senior indigenous leader. And that my curiosity was about the performance of the company and where it saw itself. And then part of that might be indigenous health, but it's actually not the main part. And so, my attraction was that I wasn't going to be the director of the Reconciliation Action Program.

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I was going to be the director of nib, charged with shareholders’ expectations and their ambitions. And so, I'm incredibly thankful that I found that opportunity, but also a board and a company that was quite attracted to, I guess, a senior leader who's indigenous, as opposed to a senior indigenous leader.

00:19:11:01 - 00:19:17:18

BENNETT MASON

You've spoken about that earlier in the discussion. I think I’ve heard you talk about it again, the difference between those terms. Senior indigenous leader and a senior leader who's indigenous. Why is that so important to talk about?

00:19:24:00 - 00:19:49:17

BRAD WELSH

Look, I think it's critical because we in Australia, with its conscious or unconscious, we have this view that the only way to serve your indigeneity is to work in an indigenous facing role. And so, our best and brightest Talent is gravitating to indigenous facing roles which are largely closing the gap roles largely, kind of, in some respect, poverty facing roles.

00:19:49:17 - 00:20:09:10

And so, you never learn the balance sheet. You never learn the competitive advantage. You never learn what investors are doing. You never learn how to attract capital to your community. So, if you want maximum impact as an indigenous professional, you have to know how to attract capital to your community. You can’t just manage NAIDOC week.

00:20:09:10 - 00:20:30:08

I mean, we're in NAIDOC week. [BM1] It's an incredible week. But it's one week of the year. You need to know how to grow a company's value. and so, for me, being a senior leader who's proudly indigenous, but I want to manage the balance sheet, not just NAIDOC week. Like that's critical for me because we can bring our full indigeneity all the way through the balance sheet into the core of a business.

00:20:30:08 - 00:20:55:24

And, as I said a little bit earlier, I think it's part of Australia's competitive advantage. Like we hold and host the world's oldest living culture, and we should be proud of that, but we should actually get a value out of it. And so, for me, we’ve got to unlock a generation of indigenous talent that's hungry for the balance sheet role, because otherwise we're going to just fill up the NAIDOC week roles.

00:20:56:01 - 00:21:07:18

BENNETT MASON

This brings me to the work you're not doing with Mawal. What made you start that organisation and what are you trying to accomplish there?

00:21:07:20 - 00:21:36:06

BRAD WELSH

Yeah, Mawal for me brings everything together. So, all those all those career reinventions, everything I've learnt in all those different places. I fundamentally believe that we have the talent in the Aboriginal community to occupy more than seven ASX seats. And so, if we don't unlock talent towards genuine balance sheet management, we will never meet any of those procurement targets.

00:21:36:06 - 00:21:56:19

We will never meet any of those employment targets. And we will never see indigeneity as being a wealthy culture. And so, I kind of feel like if I don't put the ladder down and unlock that next generation and unlock - communities have talked, even when I was a kid like my grandparents lived in a tin shack in Goodger.

00:21:56:19 - 00:22:16:17

And so, my family lived in tin shacks, and they talked about owning assets back then. They talked about Aboriginal people kind of owning assets. But ownership of assets is very different to consultation. Like you can't consult someone to own an asset. You've got to have a different set of behaviours. It got to be on risk.

00:22:16:18 - 00:22:52:14

You've got to make decisions. You've got to be ready to live with the positives and negatives of those decisions. You've got to. And so, there's a completely different stance our community needs to take if we want to own and operate assets. And they've got to match the commercial. So for me as a commercial leader and something that I've kind of really focussed on growing, is bringing that commercial experience into the community dynamics so that we can unlock a generation of 10,000 indigenous leaders who are on the balance sheet, but also Aboriginal communities owning and operating assets, which requires a very different behaviour set.

00:22:52:14 - 00:23:08:06

So, Mawal is kind of hoping to bring all of that together so that we can normalise indigeneity working all across companies and all across the economy.

00:23:08:08 - 00:23:11:14

BENNETT MASON

And what does success look like for you at Mawal?

00:23:11:19 - 00:23:35:17

BRAD WELSH

Yeah, one leader at a time, kind of at the moment. really scaling out this, unlocking indigenous identity and capital and risk management and really driving a dialogue to say that we shouldn't be afraid of the commercials. We should embrace them. in some respect, our ancestors and elders have fought incredibly hard to get hard won rights, some of them in the High Court.

00:23:35:19 - 00:24:03:04

We need to activate those rights. They didn't kind of win them so we could put them in a book, they won them so that we can activate them. And so, for me, it's kind of success is activating really hard-won rights to competitive advantage but then unlocking a generation of indigenous people who feel incredibly comfortable as the CFO, the CLO, the CEO, the investment relations manager. like our kids should be as comfortable in Cape York as they are in New York.

00:24:03:04 - 00:24:28:23

We need them to orbit through both; we're not trying to kind of keep them prisoners on their own country. And so, Mawal’s success would be that we've normalised indigenous excellence on the balance sheet. We've grown competitive advantage in the in the industry. And we've unlocked a generation of people that we can say, “Now you're not the unique one, You're the norm. We expect you to achieve.”

00:24:31:17 - 00:24:53:23

BENNETT MASON

You were talking about how smart, talented First Nations young people might go into the First Nations sector more broadly. As you said, they might not be going into commercial roles with P&L responsibilities, CFO, CEO. Why do you think that is still and what needs to change?

00:24:54:00 - 00:25:12:05

BRAD WELSH

Yeah, I still think it’s this view that the only way to serve your indigeneity is to work in an indigenous facing role. So, what we're finding is our talent, The best and very, very brightest of our talent might even end up in a CFO role. And they feel like they're not being indigenous while they're in there. They feel like they're being non-Indigenous.

00:25:12:05 - 00:25:29:22

So, they've got to give back, go back, be back. when there could be nothing more indigenous than being the CFO and attracting capital and managing risk. I mean, we've done it for 65,000 years. Like the reason we're the longest surviving culture in the world through two ice ages and a thousand year long drought, is we manage the landscape.

00:25:29:22 - 00:26:00:14

We manage the economy. We manage. We have a series of rules.  And so for me, talent And from what I've experienced with people, talent doesn't see itself as indigenous when it's on the balance sheet and then gravitates to or wants to give back or go back or kind of, run to the lowest common denominator to kind of serve their indigeneity. When if you can attract capital to your community and you can attract new ventures, and you’re serving your indigeneity well above.

00:26:00:19 - 00:26:21:19

And don't get me wrong, I support the indigenous affairs team I always have. I think they play an important role. It just can't be the extent of experience with Aboriginality. So, I think this gravitation is still there and we've got to help people realise that they're reclaiming their ancestry by managing capital and risk, as opposed to walking away from it.

00:26:21:21 - 00:26:27:10

BENNETT MASON

Is there a role here for boards and directors of their organisations to help this shift?

00:26:27:12 - 00:26:50:18

BRAD WELSH

Absolutely. One of the most powerful things a board or an executive member role or anyone else can do is teach modern capital and risk management to indigenous talent. And so, we talk about mentoring, and we talk about kind of, a whole range of things. Indigenous talent with modern capital and risk management is unstoppable.

00:26:50:20 - 00:27:09:10

And so, we in our board community and in the executive community, we have the best capital and risk managers in the country. And so, we should be using the full effect of that to bring indigeneity through. So, to cultivate that ground, to unlock the very best of talent. And it's one of the things that I'm quite focussed on.

00:27:09:10 - 00:27:26:11

But there is no shortage of indigenous people ready, willing and able to be developed to get into that. Not just the C-suite but board roles. But it won't happen if we just hope for it to happen like we've got to kind of get in there and teach.

00:27:26:13 - 00:27:44:15

BENNETT MASON

You mentioned earlier the lack of First Nations Australians on the boards of ASX companies. How have you seen that change over the last five, ten years, and are you hopeful that more change is on the way?

00:27:44:17 - 00:28:14:06

BRAD WELSH

Yeah. Look, I think you go back five years maybe, you definitely go back ten years, you couldn't point to one indigenous director. And so, to have I think it's seven right now. But percentage wise there's 1,000% increase or something.  So we probably need to say about 50 or 60, genuinely kind of on the ASX. There’s about 2000 positions on the ASX 300.

00:28:14:08 - 00:28:40:14

So, you probably need about that kind of 50 or 60 indigenous people making up various roles. I couldn’t put my hand on 50 or 60 people that I could just put into ASX roles, even if I had that power. So, we've got to cultivate the talent as well. in some respect, we're going to see an improvement over the next ten years because we've seeing talent come through in new ways.

00:28:40:16 - 00:29:04:03

And we're seeing people doing different things. The entrepreneur sector is incredible in terms of its growth. So, I think there'll be improvement organically, but we've got to supercharge it. pulling one director through or one talent through, you’re talking 10 to 20% improvement in numbers, right?

00:29:04:03 - 00:29:24:19

That's how low the numbers actually are. So, changing one person's career pathway is material right now. And so, for us, making sure that we're getting the right directors kind of being trained and taught is critical, right. Because those numbers can keep growing, but only if we have a clear and coordinated approach to it.

00:29:24:21 - 00:29:33:22

BENNETT MASON

You talked about the levers that can be pulled. What needs to be done? It is boards themselves, is it recruitment agencies? mentoring?

00:29:33:24 - 00:29:52:21

BRAD WELSH

I'm always a big fan of mentoring in the right purpose, in the right way. Mawal is doing a leadership program to kind of unlock the talent or to get the get the talent captured. And get a cohort of people together.

00:29:52:23 - 00:30:24:15

I think we need to grab a cohort of directors and bring them to the very best and brightest indigenous talent. And we need to build those connections. I mean, one of the things I jokingly said to the nob board is, I grew up in Redfern, which isn't far from the nib office, but the pathway to the nib boardroom was Parkes, Weipa, Perth, Darwin, then to the boardroom. so, there's like two train stations between us. But there’s 10,000km of journey to get there. So, most Aboriginal people will not have an orbit that includes kind of ASX directors in it. And we need to change that.

00:30:39:10 - 00:30:58:22

BENNETT MASON

I want to talk a bit more about your career because you have had this amazing journey. At the moment there's Mawal, you're still the chief executive at ERA, and you're a director with nib. How difficult is it balancing all those roles?

00:30:58:24 - 00:31:16:18

BRAD WELSH

It can be difficult. I mean, it kind of ebbs and flows. So, you work kind of surges and then kind of drops down a little bit. The great thing is I'm passionate about all of them. And I think that when you're passionate about something, you find time for it.

00:31:16:18 - 00:31:40:09

You prioritise time for it. So, I find it manageable. I find I've got a good team around me. There's some great people that have supported me in my career. Some of my best leaders gave me the clearest feedback about my leadership and about how what I thought I was delivering, I wasn't, and that was incredibly powerful.

00:31:40:09 - 00:32:04:02

I didn't want to hear it at the time, but it was incredibly powerful at unlocking my future skill set or my current skill set. And so, I think having the courage to have some of those really hard conversations, which is one that we're going to have to do with Mawal, right? We want communities to be successful, but that's going to require some really courageous conversations about changing the way we show up and changing the way we act.

00:32:04:02 - 00:32:18:07

And realising the benefits of that. But it's not going to be immediate. So, for me, it's been kind of a full plate, but a really enjoyable one. You're working on what you love.

00:32:18:09 - 00:32:35:23

BENNETT MASON

A lot of what you've done in your career has been stakeholder management in different forms, whether it's at ERA, Rio, even in politics, stakeholders are everywhere. What have you learned about stakeholder management? Because it's an important responsibility for boards as well.

00:32:36:00 - 00:33:12:01

BRAD WELSH

Yeah, I think one of the really important skills is to try to put yourself in the shoes of that stakeholder. And if you can put yourself in the shoes of that stakeholder to try and understand, why is it their perspective is their perspective. So why do they believe what they believe? And whether they believe what they believe is right or wrong or logical or illogical, just trying to understand where they're coming from and what they're trying to achieve, even if it's not what they say.

00:33:12:03 - 00:33:52:13

For me, that kind of gives you an ability to work with that stakeholder. one of the things I picked up kind of living remotely, and kind of moving out of an urban environment was the breadth of views and experience across the country. And while that might sound obvious, when you're living with a different community, like in Weipa, we had a barge delivering food so everyone would kind of quickly build this behaviour that you turn up to Woolworths on a Tuesday because that's when the food arrived. something in the urban community, you never even think about whether there's going to be apples there or milk's going to be. And so, you learn So much by exposure to somebody else's shoes or exposure to their perspective that it's much easier to deal with it if you can understand where it's coming from. If you're just kind of battled hardened and trying to get your perspective across, you run the risk of not even understanding where they're coming from.

00:34:16:11 - 00:34:25:08

And then then you diverge significantly from your stakeholders or your shareholders or, the people you really care about.

00:34:25:10 - 00:34:40:18

BENNETT MASON

Stakeholder groups aren't homogenous. Within those groups, there's a lot of diversity, whether it's traditional owners, like with ERA. Or even nib with shareholders, there's going to be many different views, many different opinions, many different wants. How do you balance all that?

00:34:42:23 - 00:35:07:15

BRAD WELSH

And their views will change. So even the same stakeholder might have a different view six months later than they did. I think in risk management you have to be prepared to make a decision based on the information you have at the time, after reasonable inquiry. and you have to be prepared for the basis of that decision to change.

00:35:07:16 - 00:35:26:20

And if the basis is enough to change a decision, you need to change your decision. And so, you can't lose the ability to make a decision because indecision is a risk. But you have to kind of find a level of comfort around risk management, and you’ve got the right controls. But you have to live with the decision and then you have to be ready that that stakeholder’s view might actually change. or more information might become available. Is that enough to change your decision? Is that enough to change your approach? Or have you already invested the capital? These are all things that you have to kind of balance as a leader, and you don't you don't get them all right.

00:35:43:04 - 00:35:56:11

I mean, you've got to manage when you get them wrong. But on balance, you get them right more than you do wrong. And whereas, if you characterise that whole period of just indecision, you are certain to get it wrong.

00:35:56:13 - 00:36:08:22

BENNETT MASON

We don't have too much time left. But I wanted to ask a few more questions about your career. You've had this remarkable journey. You've had these reinventions. Is there anything you wish you'd done differently?

00:36:08:24 - 00:36:28:23

BRAD WELSH

Oh, plenty. I mean, I think you learn your biggest lessons out of losses. So, when you get something really wrong. It's a very difficult question because. Because I learnt so much out of those losses or getting it wrong, I was probably better on the next shot or the next the next kind of run.

00:36:28:23 - 00:36:50:22

BRAD WELSH

And if I would have done it differently, I might not have got the lesson out of the loss. And so, it's hard to say that I would have done it differently, but there's plenty of times where I got something wrong and had to repair, retract, kind of come back, and overall move forward. But recognise that I probably would have done it differently going forward.

00:36:50:24 - 00:37:11:14

We'd have graduates turn up on site. Yeah. Their first real job out of university, and they'd be like, “I want to be a GM in three years. I want this.” And it's not going to happen. It's never going to happen. Like, you do 10 to 20 years in before you kind of --

00:37:11:16 - 00:37:21:01

But I was that person. Like I was the person who wanted to retire at 30, I wanted to. And so, you’ve kind of got to help them get through that and kind of help pick them up.

00:37:21:03 - 00:37:35:10

BENNETT MASON

You definitely haven't, retired at 30. But you were just named the AFR Boss “Emerging director” winner for 2025. What did that award mean to you?

00:37:35:12 - 00:38:07:18

BRAD WELSH

For me, it was amazing. I mean, it was a big surprise. I realised it’s the “Emerging Director” award. But it was humbling. I was incredibly surprised I was even in the running to be honest. I think for me, it was rewarding in that it was recognition of some of the work that I've done and some of the breadth. Hopefully it says to a whole generation of indigenous kids that you can do it.

00:38:07:23 - 00:38:27:09

I mean, I wasn't the smartest kid at school. I was definitely not the smartest in my community or the smartest in my mob. And so hopefully it gives them a sense that there's a pathway if you want to take it. It's hard work and with some luck, you don't have to go through Parkes, Weipa, Darwin and Firth.

00:38:27:09 - 00:38:39:22

But that it's a pathway that our community can take and that we can win awards in the mainstream, that have genuine, amazing opportunities.

00:38:39:22 - 00:38:49:18

BENNETT MASON

So, what advice would you have to that next generation of emerging directors, people who want to contribute meaningfully in the boardroom?

00:38:49:18 - 00:39:17:12

BRAD WELSH

Yeah, an unwavering curiosity. it's something that you cannot replace. You've got to be curious about the company. You've got to be curious about its balance sheet. You've got to be curious about its future, and you've got to share its ambitions. And you can't be the indigenous director, the climate change director, the AI director. You've got to be a director to grow the value of that company over the short, medium and long term.

00:39:17:12 - 00:39:42:06

And that requires trade-off decisions. It requires judgement, it requires engagement. It requires curiosity. And you cannot replace curiosity. it can't be done by anyone else. It's only you. And so, my one piece of advice is just have this unwavering curiosity to what you want that company to be, or what you think that company is going to be and just keep chasing it.

00:39:42:08 - 00:39:50:10

BENNETT MASON

Brad, I think that's some great advice. And you've got a packed schedule, so we might leave things there. But Brad Welsh, thanks very much for talking with us.

00:39:50:10 - 00:39:53:12

BRAD WELSH

Thank you. Thank you for having me.