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like, ‘well, where’s the insult in that?’,” she
said. “Let me tell you that neither my hus-
band nor I were offended.”
Having built up the necessary experi-
ence in the sector some questioned at the
start of her tenure with Lynas, Lacaze is
now the leading voice for rare earths in
Australia. And asked what the long-term
future might hold for her career, she re-
mains as direct as she was on her first
day in the hotseat.
“Let’s put it this way, and I’ve said this
before, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad be-
came Prime Minister of Malaysia for the
second time when he was 94 years old,
so I figure I’ve got a lot of working years
yet because I could emulate Tun, couldn’t
I?” Lacaze chuckled.
“But very seriously, our singular fo-
cus at present is how do we grow fast
Lynas is the leading producer of rare earths outside of China

across the industry. diversity of input, people have got differ-
Lynas has equal male and ent experiences and we’re more likely to
female directors on its six- get novel or creative answers than if you
person board which is chaired sit around a table where everybody looks
by Kathleen Conlon. The com- the same, with the same experience, are
pany also boasts an industry- going to come up with the same solutions,
leading position of having up which may or may not work. They may be
to 10 different nationalities the same solutions used for 20 years, but
across the first two layers of its actually haven’t been particularly good.
leadership team. “For me, diversity is a business im-
“You simply just get better provement strategy. The more diverse
ideas if you have more peo- the inputs, the richer the conversation
ple with more diverse views,” and the more novel and optimised the so-
Lacaze. lutions that you will put in place.”
“Diversity matters, in terms Lacaze’s strong advocacy for improved
of industry experience, in diversity within the resources industry
terms of gender, in terms of has at times attracted unwarranted and
nationalities. We’ve got 10 na- nasty sledges, especially on social media
tionalities within the first two platforms such as Twitter.
layers of management and all “I had a troll on Twitter at one stage who
of this helps because when we sit around made the comment that I was a ‘mad dog
the table to deal with an issue, we have a feminist with a handbag husband’, and I’m
NdPr prices were sitting comfortably above
$US140/t at the time of print, up more than
300% over the past two years

enough? We’ve got a number of really
exciting projects in the company and my
singular focus is making sure that we ex-
ecute those successfully.
“I don’t sit around spending much time
thinking about what I might be doing in a
few years’ time. I’m focused on how we
make this business as good as it can pos-
sibly be.”
– Michael Washbourne

A site near Mt Weld was originally considered for the cracking and leaching plant now under
construction in Kalgoorlie

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT JULY 2022 Page 29