At this year’s Diggers and Dealers conference, about 2,500 mining delegates touched down in WA’s gold city of Kalgoorlie to hear from the very top of the industry.

But of the more than 40 directors, chief executives, and chairs who took to the panel stage, only one was a woman.

Chief executive and managing director of Australian Strategic Materials (ASM) Rowena Smith said she was “very pleased” to have been invited to speak.

“I spent an enormous amount of time in the audience in the early years, and I didn’t see any women on the stage,” she said.

Ms Smith said the increase in women at the event was positive.

“Twenty years ago … there were [also] very few women in the audience,” she said.

“As I stood there on the stage on Monday, I was looking out into so many women’s faces.”

Read more at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-14/women-in-mining-industry-not-filling-top-level-positions/105619692