Advertisement

JEFF QUARTERMAINE

Jeff Quartermaine. Picture: Danella Bevis/The West Australian.

The Perseus Mining managing director tells Nick Evans about life and the challenges of mining gold in Africa.

Biggest career break?

For someone who has never had a career plan, I’ve had a lot of good fortune. The biggest break, though, was probably when I was invited to join Perseus Mining back in 2010 as the chief financial officer. At that stage Perseus was in its infancy and there were a lot of things that needed to be done, so I had a much broader mandate and I could put my technical and commercial skills to work at a place where results counted.

Describe your leadership style
.

I prefer to manage through a collegiate style — encouraging members of my senior team to contribute their skills and judgment towards the common goal.

First or most unusual job?

My first real job was as a labourer on a tobacco farm in far north Queensland. I was only 12 or 13 at the time, and during tobacco harvesting most of the kids in my town got involved and earned a bit of pocket money. My parents weren’t too keen on the idea as it was very dirty work, the hours were long and the work was hard — and there were some pretty colourful characters working around there at the time as well.

Best way to improve productivity?

I’ve found that employing people who actually care about what they do and who realise the importance of what they are being asked to do can bring very positive results. Working with very competent people makes this approach possible, and my role then becomes one of setting direction, motivating and making the final call if and when this is needed. But for this to work there needs to be a high level of trust and respect among the team.

Most influential mentors?

My parents were massively important as they gave me a very strong moral compass and work ethic. Then one of my bosses, Phillip Kearney, taught me to think positively and believe that if I applied myself there was very little that couldn’t be achieved. And my father-in-law, who taught me to be patient and that there are many ways to arrive at a destination — that’s probably still a bit of a work in progress.

Do you make use of social media?

No, I don’t. That’s probably a bit old school but I’m not sure my random thoughts are going to contribute much to the sum total of the world. And if someone has something to say to me, it’s not that hard to get hold of me.

How do you spend your spare time?

I’ve always been a bit of a sports addict and love participating, coaching or watching sport — recently that’s been a little more passive than it used to be. Since coming to Perth I’ve taken up cycling as a way of relaxing and also staying fit. I try to ride at least 150km a week. It’s also something I can share with my son, now we’ve moved on from rugby, which used to be one of my great passions.

What was the last novel you read?

Throughout life I’ve always been a voracious reader, but these days jet lag puts a bit of a dampener on that. The last novel I read was The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, which really resonated with me. Both of my parents were exposed to the war in the Pacific and when I was growing up in northern Queensland many of my father’s friends were returned servicemen who had been in the islands and, in the case of a couple, been on the Burma railway.

Favourite holiday destination?

My all-time favourite place to visit ... Tuscany in Italy. When my wife and I both turned 50 a couple of years ago we made a trip there together and it was just magnificent.

Your worst investment decision?

That’s very easy — my investments in expensive golf club memberships. There’s an inverse relationship between my love of golf and the time I have available to play — and on occasions I’ve done what you absolutely shouldn’t do and work out exactly what each round of golf actually costs me. It was a lot.

Biggest challenge facing Africa gold producers?

Operating in Africa brings many challenges for Australian companies but it isn’t much different from operating anywhere else in the world — they’re just dressed up in different ways. It would be easy to say the unpredictability of life, corruption of government officials, the influx of illegal Asian gold miners, erratic power supplies, infrastructure shortages, and frequent changes of fiscal regimes — they are all big challenges. There’s no doubt they are all difficult but many of those challenges also exist here in Australia.