Transcription
[Music] Often, people, um, see someone in a role as a CIO, um, but they don't necessarily, I guess, understand exactly what does what does that mean? Um, what what does a typical day in the life of Gavin Wood look like?
Uh, well, right now, because I finished up at Newcrest, it's much quieter. But prior to that, um, a typical day would, um, uh, I'd probably be up before 6, um, um, maybe checking emails, maybe a call to, um, to Canada. Um, then I'd get my son up, I'd make him breakfast, um, uh, getting ready for school, um, my, and if it was a Monday or Friday, I would take him to school, um, otherwise my wife would. Um, then, uh, and again, another thing I learned from one of my mentors, Lori, um, Lori went running every day. It didn't matter how hot it was or how hard it was raining. Uh, my version of that was I got on my bike and rode to work every day. Again, uh, it was pouring with rain, and I had to squeeze my socks out when I, of the water, when I arrived. It didn't matter, but I think that sent a message of consistency and purpose, um, to, uh, people.
And then it's, uh, largely meetings, but many of those meetings will be one-on-ones. Um, I think the value in, um, spending time with people, um, listening to them, giving them a bit of context, um, that they may not be aware of that could help them, uh, find value or meaning or the right course, I think is really important. Um, I, I think, you know, at least a day to two days of my week will be spent on that. Yeah. Um, and, um, in spite of, uh, culture-eating strategy for breakfast, I do believe in a lot of structure. So, uh, we had a very structured, uh, set of leadership team meetings which would cover different topics each week of the month. And if you attended all of those meetings, you could pretty much be across every part of what was going on in the IT function at all the sites, whether that was service delivery, projects, financials, um, risk, cyber, uh, uh, people, etc.
So much of my week would be in meetings which were structured and, in turn, you know, would, um, enable, um, uh, me to make any course corrections that I think needed, needed to happen, uh, me to have a view on the kind of development need that the team needed and for us to be able to invest back in that. Um, and also, um, to, um, spend time with our stakeholders. Um, so, uh, I have, sadly for my family, spent a lot of months away, um, out at mines sites and different places, um, as part of Newcrest. Um, but spending time at where people go to work, uh, understanding things from their perspective, their context, uh, and be able to bring that back and provide that to my team to help them be successful, it's been really helpful too. So that's been my, my typical week. And, um, if I look at this year, I've probably been away from home about 3 months, um, in total already.
You're not going to miss that.
No, no. My son won't miss it, actually. He's made that very clear.
Yeah, I'm sure he won't. Um, you've, you've been CIO, uh, had been up until last week, uh, for, for nine years with, with Newcrest, which is about two and a half times the average tenure. Um, I'm just interested in how you stayed fresh in the role, uh, with, with what you were looking to achieve.
I think, uh, that strong desire to be successful, um, translated into, um, the team actually looking for new things. So, you know, we started off very much in the traditional IT space of, you know, networks, infrastructure, um, enterprise systems. Uh, we gradually took on all of the OT apps, um, and that then created a platform for us to move into the digital space. So there's a lot of work that we did in, um, uh, AI, data, etc., that created a lot of interest in the role, um, and also in the, in the transition towards that, we tried to be fairly entrepreneurial. We did a lot in crowdsourcing with an organization called Unearthed. Uh, we actually co-developed a, um, online crowdsourcing platform with them, which was, uh, quite successful at the time. Um, so I think those, finding those, those projects, um, were helpful. Um, and also, so I think we were consciously using what we were doing in the external world to build our internal brand, brand. So if, um, a mining engineer from outside spoke to their mate inside Newcrest and said, I see you're doing really cool things with crowdsourcing or with artificial intelligence, it seemed to be more valuable than me actually saying that to them. So, um, it seemed to be time well spent. And I think as in recent years, I've been very fortunate, um, uh, to work for SES Vagera, who's our chief technical and projects officer, or was our chief technical and projects officer at Newcrest, um, and he afforded me the chance to work on a lot of other different things, whether that was in, um, technical strategy for the company, uh, culture in his team and others that have been, um, nice side gigs to have, um, or side hustles as I used to like to call them, um, that, that, that kept it, kept things interesting for me.
Yeah. Great that you, you've, you've had an incredible career and, uh, you know, you've acknowledged, um, I guess some of the real positive aspects of what you've achieved and opportunities that are presented. Are there any regrets?
Yeah, actually, there's one thing, I, one person I haven't mentioned, I do want to mention before we get on to regrets, and that's also Jared Bond, who I worked for for a long time at Newcrest, and, uh, uh, Jared has a wonderful sense of humor and, uh, and, and lots and lots of wonderful phrases as well that I've learned a lot from, um, that, um, uh, that, uh, my team sadly have had to learn too, um, hopefully they, they find them, they found them to be quite useful. But, uh, his support as well as SES's through, um, through my time has, has been particularly important to me. Um, Newcrest at times has been a hard place to work, um, and having that support of the person you work for, I think is really important. I have a little, um, formula, uh, that to be happy in your job, you need 50% of it is liking and respecting the person you work for, 25% is liking and respecting the people you work with, and 25% is liking what you do. And if you don't get that first one right, you're never going to get, you're never going to be happy. So I've been very fortunate. So, um, I just, just wanted to share that too.
Yeah, thank you. Um, but on regrets, um, I think many of my regrets tend to be actually, maybe I think I could have behaved better at different points in time. Um, there, you know, I, I like to think when I'm, when I'm at my best, I think about what's going to happen next from the action I'm taking and start thinking over the horizon. And there are on some occasions that I think that, um, I maybe should have thought that through a bit more, um, and, um, cuz you know, the impact I want to have on people is a positive one, and I'd like to say that I'm at my best every day, but I'm not. And it's those things, um, where, you know, if I'm fortunate, I get the chance to apologize. Sometimes you don't get to have that moment back again. Yeah. Um, so I think that it's, it's people's stuff that I think I'm, you know, I regret the most, um, where I wish I had given people more time, um, I hadn't been so quick to get to, um, uh, the course of action that was required, um, that, um, you know, and I, you know, I, I like my respect is important to me, you know, that I feel respected and I, I like to give respect, um, and you know, when I feel that I haven't fully respected someone else, that's when I've disappointed myself. So that's probably my main regret.
Yeah. Okay. And I guess that, that resonates with, um, your sense of leading through valleys, you know, your kind of personal sense of that's very important to you in terms of getting the outcome, the way the interaction you've had with that person, the way you've, you've, uh, understood them. Yes, um, as well, which I think has kind of come consistently throughout our conversation as well. [Music]