Tech Take 5 with Coert Du Plessis, CEO of MaxMine
Coert du Plessis is often described as 100% passion and 100% relentless drive, making up the 200% energy needed to sustain lasting change. He is a regular keynote speaker, avid angel investor and scale-up mentor and CEO of MaxMine, the world leader in productivity technology for miners combining expert coaching, AI, Industrial IoT and Software as a Service. Maxmine is an active member in the CORE Community and Ecosystem, and has taken part in CORE Start and was featured in the 2021 Hot 30 Awards.
CEO, Coert has previously led BHPs global digital transformation, built its innovation mine and then BHPs global data strategy and initiatives. Prior to BHP, Coert was a Senior Partner with Deloitte leading the data analytics practice specializing in machine learning and application in energy and resources. Coert recently hosted our member-only Tech Talk Tuesday lunch where he spoke on The Bottleneck to NetZero Mining. Without mining, there is no Netzero.
Coert introduced MaxMine Carbon, the latest full scale tool from the company, measuring a mine’s carbon footprint in high resolution and exposing the operational, equipment, environment and operator levers we can pull to reduce the footprint - Measure to Manage. He also touched on the importance of monitoring the analytics process itself (Data Quality) and hardwiring the improvements to how the business works (also called the Management Operating System). The interactive talk was fantastic and generated a lot of food for thought, and questioning and overall provided insight to many of our members.
Tech Top 5 with Coert Du Plessis
Ahead of Coert’s talk, we sat down with him to rapid 5 questions discussing mining, technology and the future.
What does your role entail within the business and what will your key focus be in the coming months?
I’m the CEO, which means I define vision, our purpose and the sticky priorities shared across teams that help us execute our strategy. Day to day my job is to deal with problems no one else can and remove friction that make our teams’ work more difficult. Over the next few months, we are focused on finalising the product market fit for MaxMine Carbon to reduce mining scope 1 CO2 and continue scaling our business to deal with our hyper-growth.What are 2-3 industry challenges you are facing/coming across?
On a Macro level the biggest challenge we face is accelerating carbon reduction in mining. To get to Net Zero, we will have to mine a lot more, doubling Mining’s CO2 footprint. We need to radically reduce that footprint NOW.
On a Micro level, hiring the right talent is prevalent across the whole industry. We are looking talent that fits with our culture, cares about the things we care about and want to have real world impact.What are your thoughts around the pace of technological change in the resources sector?
Technological change is both slower (Autonomy) and faster (Data and CO2) than we think. The challenge remains around bringing more digital natives and technically strong digital leaders into the resources sector.
What does innovation mean to you and your company?
It’s like asking someone to describe what is air or what is water… it is just what we do… every day…. And we are never satisfied with what we have!What are you most excited about covering in your upcoming Tech Talk session?
Showing people what is possible today to reduce Carbon footprint… and how miners can mine their best resource that is infinitely renewable - their data.