SKIPP WILLIAMSON - Managing Director

Operations leadership in metals (steel, aluminium, zinc, lead), mining, pulp & paper and light manufacturing McKinsey & Company; 14 years leading performance improvement work Expertise in performance & cultural turnaround Delivered substantial results in North America, Europe, Africa & Australasia BE Civil (Hons), MPhil Mgt. (Organisational Behaviour) (Oxford), MSc. Geotechnical Engineering (MIT)

Skipp brings deep experience in assisting companies to achieve exceptional results. She has worked in Australasia, North America, Africa and Europe spanning pulp and paper, packaging, and most metals processing & mining. She worked for 5 years on strategy and performance at McKinsey & Company, then formed Partners in Performance (PIP) in 1996.

CAREER SNAPSHOT

Highlights of Skipp's career include:

$140m+ of improvements across 3 smelting sites. Designed and led a performance improvement turnaround at one of the world’s largest metal manufacturers. The work focused on all levers of the business (throughput, recoveries, reliability, efficiencies, costs, safety, environment, procurement, industrial marketing & sales). This work delivered volume improvements of 15-25% and simultaneous cost reductions of 10-15% (20-30% reduction in cost/tonne). It was driven both by ensuring implementation and sustainability of hundreds of improvement ideas and by working with the organisation to build systems and behaviours which support high performance as an integral part of the business.

$110m of improvements at open cut mine ($80m cash flowing in 6 months). Results delivered included:

• 17% increase in tonnes mined

• 17% reduction in procurement spend

• 7% reduction in costs

• 20% increase in shovel productivity (bottleneck)

$100m EBITDA improvements followed by successful industry sale in 15 months: Led a performance turnaround across 3 pulp and paper mills. At the time the company was losing $6m per month, and was predicting worse to come. The owners had not received acceptable bids for the sites in a sale process and asked PIP to improve performance and ensure a profitable sale. In 15 months PIP added $100mpa at EBITDA level (annual revenues of $900m). The recovery spanned throughput, recoveries, costs & efficiencies, maintenance reliability and costs, sales, marketing, procurement, labour, supply chain and process control. The results were despite a collapse in paper prices in the market. The improvements also led to the successful sale of the 3 mills.  

Delivered implemented results across multiple industries:

• $200m of cost reductions and 25% improvement in delivery performance at an integrated steel manufacturer
• $20m (13%) reduction in procured spend for metals processor in 6 months
• $20m EBIT improvement for South African Aluminium smelter in 10 months (36% increase casthouse output, $7m cost reduction)
• 16% increase in volumes in 6 months for synthetic rutile operation
• 15% increase in volumes, 15% reduction in procured spend and $8m of identified cost savings for a major metals processing plant. This work was done in 6 months
• 15% reduction in procurement spend for 4 cardboard/carton packaging plants in USA
• $240m revenue and cost enhancements across 3 aluminium smelters in 2 countries
• $375m reduction in development cost of Greenfield mine site from those already approved by the Board
• $40m of cost reductions at a steel mini-mill
• $5m of savings at a metal fabricator and galvaniser (compressible costs of $12m)
• identified $5m of savings for Aluminium extrusion company
• $45m of savings plus 60% reduction in cycle time at metals research institution
• 15% reduction in procured spend for mobile phone manufacturer in 4 months

Identifying and valuing operational KPIs for a concrete manufacturer. Identifying improvements to generate a 40% increase in volume in 4 months


EDUCATION, FAMILY & INTERESTS

Skipp has a Masters in Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Engineering (1st class hons) from Auckland University . She also holds a Masters of Philosophy (Organisational Behaviour) from Oxford University with the Examiner’s prize for top of course and highest grades ever achieved.

Skipp’s spare time is consumed by her children Austin and Jasmine. Occasionally she sneaks in triathlon training, snowboarding/skiing and dinners with friends.