The Mining3 Board of Directors sets overall policy, determines the strategic direction and oversees technology transfer and commercialisation activities through quarterly meetings. In consultation with the Research Committee, the Board directs the research focus of Mining3.
Dr Jacqui Coombes is the Executive Director of SageAbility, a leading talent strategy organisation. She plays influential roles as the Chair of Mining3, Acting Chair of ICRAR, and is an integral member of Advisory Boards for MADI, StartUpWA, and State of Play. As the former MD & CEO of Amira Global, Jacqui has a distinguished record of leadership and governance. Anchored in her roots as a Statistician/Mathematician, Jacqui stands out as a world-renowned Geostatistician with expansive expertise across the mine value chain, various commodities, and global territories. Her academic accolades include a PhD in frameworks for minerals industry competency development, a Masters in Commercial and Resources Law, and a Masters in Geostatistics. She’s also the author of seminal works such as “The Art and Science of Resource Estimation” and “I’d Like to be OK with MIK, UC?”. More than just a strategic advisor and thought leader, Jacqui is a bridge between science, governance, and finance, synthesising these disciplines to create actionable strategies in the global minerals industry. Her commitment to challenging traditional paradigms and pioneering innovation is evident in her transformative projects. Gifted in both quantitative and qualitative data analysis, Jacqui ensures decisions are both grounded in data and financially sound. A staunch advocate for multidisciplinary collaboration, Jacqui weaves together insights from industry, government, and academia. She fervently believes in the power of converging science, governance, and financial acumen to catalyse growth and innovation. Her passion extends to building organisational resilience, mentoring individual talent, and seamlessly embedding forward-thinking ideas to drive value and operational excellence. LinkedIn profile:
Skills and experience
Jayde Webb is a mining engineer with over 20 years of global experience in the mining sector. Jayde has held a variety of senior technical, operations and management roles with both contractor and owner mining companies. She currently leads the mining technology development function at South32, focused on identifying opportunities for innovation in mining extraction and application of novel technologies to improve safety, productivity and company returns. Prior to this Jayde managed global contracts and tendering processes for a privately owned international contracting company. Jayde has held underground manager roles in Australia and alternate roles in Tanzania. Jayde has gained extensive technical experience across a variety of ore bodies, mining methods and operating structures. Qualifications Bachelor of Engineering (Mining Engineering) with Honours First Class Mine Managers Certificate of Competency, Underground Shift Supervisors Certificate of Competency and have been a member of the AUSIMM for 25 years. LinkedIn profile:
Skills and experience
WASM – Western Australian School of Mines
Skills and experience
Dirk van Soelen is the Vice President of Global Initiating Systems at Incitec Pivot Limited (IPL), the parent company of Dyno Nobel – a global leader in commercial explosives and blast design.
Dirk holds an Electric & Electronic Engineering degree and an MBA, and has been working in the mining and explosives industry for 20 years. His experience includes executive, senior technical, compliance and operations leadership roles, such as the Executive of Technology and Compliance for AEL Mining Services and Chief Operating Officer for DetNet South Africa. Dirk also served as a director on the board of DetNet, a world leader in the development of electronic initiation systems.
Specialising in leading and managing change in technical innovation, Dirk is currently responsible for setting the Initiating Systems global growth and technology strategy and new product introduction for Dyno Nobel. Dirk is also responsible for the mining application technology strategy and related products and value offerings.
New technology development continues to change the way Dyno Nobel is delivering practical innovation on the ground to exceed customers’ expectations and improve the safety and efficiency of our industry.
Qualifications
Throughout his 25 years in the mining industry, Rudie has lived and worked in the United States, South Africa and Australia.
Skills and experience
Rudie Boshoff is a Business Development Executive with a background in engineering whose work has demonstrated success with global teams to develop and implement mining technology and services. Over the last 25 years in mining Rudie has exhibited skill at developing operational productivity enhancements, global performance improvement strategies, and synergistic team-building initiatives to meet and exceed mining customer goals.
Some of these highlights can be seen in the startup of a transformational business unit for the Mechanical Rock cutting system in Komatsu. Another is setting up and IOT business unit by successfully introducing Remote Health Monitoring (RHM) and Prognostic capability for underground mining products/systems. In both these examples, this was done through utilizing a broad scope of industry knowledge and dynamic business acumen toward directing forward-thinking development and implementation of technology and service strategies to profitably grow the business unit, including setting up and assisting regions in executing core partnering for performance with targeted customers.
The wide mining industry and equipment manufacturing has positioned Rudie well to contribute to Mining3 by being an alternate board member representation as well as chairing the People and Culture committee.
Qualifications
Pretoria University, BSc Electrical Engineering, 1995
LinkedIn profile:
Skills and experience
Brett Triffett is a Metallurgical Engineer, Project Director and Innovation Technologist with 30 years’ experience in innovation, technical services, operations and project development roles across gold and base metals. Specific skills include technical leadership and governance across all technical disciplines, management of operational and greenfields projects through all phases of development and driving transformational thinking and innovation.
Qualifications
Skills and experience
Paul Bitter has been an employee of Caterpillar Inc. for 24 years. The bulk of his career at Caterpillar has been in the mining industry with responsibilities spanning from Engineering, dealer development, marketing & sales, technical support, training, mobile equipment consulting (application / economics / optimization), product development, manufacturing and supply chain. He held the position of Region manager – Hard Rock Vehicles & Longwall Mining at Caterpillar where he had Asia Pacific responsibility for sales and product support.
Paul also held the position as global product manager of Hard Rock Vehicles with full Profit & Loss accountability for in excess of US$500M in revenue. An example of deployment of new technologies in this previous role includes the introduction of Caterpillar’s first electric drive underground wheel loader – the R2900 XE. He currently holds the position of Product Value Stream Manager with responsibility for – manufacturing, product development, technical support and full accountability for Caterpillar’s quality across the complete line of Hard Rock Underground Mining trucks and loaders. A pertinent example in this role was that he was responsible for the ongoing development and commercialisation of Caterpillar’s first zero emissions Battery Powered machine in the Construction and Mining industries with the R1700 XE underground LHD.
Qualifications
