MICHAEL HUGGINS - Principal

10 years consulting experience including McKinsey & Company Led major turnarounds in manufacturing, resources, industrial goods, logistics and services companies. Deep expertise in commercial due diligence and working with private equity firms. Delivered results in UK, Canada, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand BE (1st Hons) (Manufacturing & Material Engineering) (Uni of QLD), PPE (Oxford)

Michael brings deep experience in identifying and delivering bottom line results, as well as leading commercial due diligence efforts with private equity firms. Prior to PIP, he worked with McKinsey & Co and Rio Tinto.

CAREER SNAPSHOT

For Partners in Performance:

• Steel mill: Increasing production by 35% through the bottleneck (delivering $20mpa)
• World’s largest coal network: $300mpa improvement in 5 months by increasing capacity by 18% with minimal capex.
• Zinc smelter: $30mpa in 15months by moving site from 50% percentile of cost curve to 10% percentile. This involved increasing production by 12% ($12mpa), and reducing costs ($18mpa). Also reduced capital requirements.
• Minerals / Chemicals manufacturer: $20mpa in 9months by increasing production by 17% (with less than $1m in capital). Also saved $3mpa in raw materials savings and another $5mpa of identified cost savings.
• Large Mining & Minerals processing site: identifying $18m in cost savings in 6 weeks. Reducing chemical prices & usage; and reducing contract labour costs by ensuring transparent margins and KPIs.
• Metal smelter: implementing $17mpa of improvements by focusing on maintenance systems & capabilities.
• Minerals processing plant during start-up: $15mpa of cost reductions and $5m of downtime benefits in 8months. Renegotiated contracts and linked contractor profit to plant uptime.
• Industrial chemicals manufacturer: In 8 months reducing delivery costs by 8% and increasing recovery by 25%.

For McKinsey and Company:

• Strategy reviews and market entry strategies in numerous industries including FMCG, industrial goods, pulp & paper, financial services and resources.
• Operational improvement work in numerous industries including: FMCG (10% cost reduction), mining ($60mpa benefit), and manufacturing.

Michael also worked at Rio Tinto as a project and process engineer.

EDUCATION AND INTERESTS

Michael was awarded a First Class Honours degree in Engineering at the University of Queensland (Manufacturing & Materials Engineering). As a Rhodes Scholar he completed a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University. Michael’s interests include swimming, rugby and playing the didgeridoo.