JOSE MARTINS

Ausdrill’s chief financial officer tells Peter Williams improving on past practice breeds efficiency.

Biggest or best career break?

My first job out of the accounting profession was as an investment analyst at Bell Group back in 1986. My job was mostly doing research into companies in which Bell Group would take a stake in or put into play. We saw a lot of interesting transactions. We also saw the demise of Bell Group when I was there, when we got bought out by Bond Corporation. In terms of a career starting point, probably nothing has come close in terms of diversity or sheer scale.

Describe your leadership style?

My style is more an open-door approach. I don’t have any regimented way of doing things. It’s more a consensus-style approach. I value everyone’s opinion, though I do know what I want probably before we start discussing things. But I want to get there with everyone on board. You actually can change your mind when you talk to people.

Most memorable executive moment?

Coogee Resources, as it was at the time, was developing the Montara oilfield and it was going to an IPO. That didn’t get up so we ended up doing a private equity deal with Babcock & Brown. The GFC came along, we had cost overruns. Babcock & Brown ran out of money and we ended up selling the company to (Thai oil and gas producer) PTTEP. Getting a transaction done to sell a company back in 2008 at the height of the GFC was an excellent result when things were pretty tough. Then we had an oil spill. So in the space of four years, quite a lot of things happened.

Are executive remuneration levels excessive?

On average, I don’t think so. There are always exceptions though and I think they’re pretty well publicised. People think there may be a problem but I think on average it’s not. There are always the high-profile ones which distort everything and probably more in the US than Australia.

Best way to improve productivity?

With good planning you can try to resource adequately and resource properly. Always try to look for ways to do things better and try to become more efficient, just have an attitude of continuously improving things. Always question past practices. Just because you did things a certain way before doesn’t mean that they are necessarily the best way now.

Do you use social media?

If so, how. Only to keep in touch with family and friends. I’m not sure for our type of work that it’s going to make any difference. We have email and we have intranet. People have phones. What we’re doing now is deploying iPads to a lot of supervisors on site so if there’s something like a safety incident they can take photographs and report and send it pretty quickly. That’s probably a better tool for us than social media.

What do you do in your spare time?

A bit of cycling, I try to play golf every now and then. I like to potter around the house. I don’t mind a bit of gardening. The rest of the time it’s catching up with family and friends and plotting the next golf or cycling holiday, or whatever we do.

Best Australian holiday location?

I quite like the south coast of WA, around Denmark. Nice wineries, nice food, nice scenery and not as busy as other areas. Nice rolling hills, very scenic.

Last book you read?

The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton. He used to ride with Lance Armstrong back in the US Postal team. It’s a book about Tyler Hamilton spilling the beans on drugs in the Tour de France. Lance Armstrong was a huge personality. It all becomes about power and ego. It’s all about winning at any cost.

What did you learn about crisis management from the 2009 Montara oil spill?

Obviously, an oil spill’s not good, it creates environmental damage. But what was interesting is when the fire started, the interest from the public was tremendous. All sorts of people came out of the woodwork, including threats. All the people in the company were amazingly dedicated to finding a solution and working hard. There’s always different agendas. That’s an important thing to learn and know how all this operates because then you can deal with all the different people and the different parties that create pressure when you have a crisis.