These days McGill is asset president at BHP’s Olympic Dam operation.

During her time as general manager and asset president with BMC McGill helped increase the pipeline of female talent flowing into senior roles. That has led to 33% of BMC managers in non-traditional roles and four of the seven BMC executive leadership team roles filled by women.

The Exceptional Young Woman in Australian Resources award went to Helena Wu, a senior reservoir engineer at Santos.

Thiess plant operator Sabrina Mackenzie won the Outstanding Australian Tradeswoman, Operator or technician award.

Bronwyn Barnes a director and non-executive chairwoman of Windward Resources, was named Exceptional Woman in Australian Resources.

Santos’ won the Company Excellence in Diversity and Performance award for its Gender Equality Program.

That program, introduced in 2011, covers flexible working, parental leave with superannuation “top up” for unpaid parental leave, training and leadership development, gender-balanced graduate intakes, pay equality, and gender attraction strategies.

The runner up was Thiess, Wesfarmers Resources and the Salvation Army Employment Plus Team for the Oothungs in Mining Program in Queensland.

That program is designed to help change the lives of and to empower indigenous women.

It delivers a four-week pre-employment program to kick start careers for women as trainee haul truck operators.

Upon successful completion of the program, most women take up permanent full-time positions as haul truck operators with Wesfarmers Resources at its Curragh mine or at the Thiess-operated Curragh North or Lake Vermont mines.