Abstract
Capital Projects from a Board Perspective – The Ultimate Balancing Act
From the boardroom, capital projects are a high-stakes balancing act where corporate reputation is paramount. Safety, company culture, ESG performance, total shareholder return, and relative shareholder return are all critical to securing and sustaining investment. The legacy of the mining super cycle—its boom, crash, and the massive impairments that followed—has left the sector grappling with more than 15 years of slow recovery in capital investment.
Today’s investor landscape is dramatically different: heightened expectations, deeper skepticism, rising activism, round-the-clock mining investor commentary, and fierce competition for capital from sectors like Bitcoin, AI, and technology. At the same time, the industry faces internal pressures—mass retirements, a widening generation gap, diminished core technical skills, and the erosion of financial acumen.
This keynote will explore how boards navigate these intersecting challenges, balancing investor demands with operational and project realities to make disciplined, strategic capital decisions that safeguard both performance and reputation.