Tough connects for business

Senior leaders across a range of industries outline the numerous and varied pathways to the top of the corporate ladder.

WITH a career that already includes work in law, venture capital, technology, and energy and resources, Samantha Tough has amassed a CV that would be the envy of many of her peers.

After eight years in criminal law, Ms Tough made the move into the corporate world, taking on a job with business tycoon Danny Hill and business partner Hugh McLernon, who at the time were running a venture capital business.

After six years in that industry she moved into resources, working for Woodside and oil and gas exploration company Hardman Resources (which subsequently merged with UK-based Tullow Oil).

Four years at the helm of Woodside’s North West Shelf operation, when the company was run by John Akehurst, led Ms Tough to her first foray into boards and governance.

After that she ran the state government’s Pilbara Power Project, has sat on numerous boards, and is now chair of retail gas market operator REMCo, director of Murchison Metals, and director of Southern Cross Goldfields.

Ms Tough said the move into venture capital was the catalyst for a host of opportunities in a range of areas.

“It was my foray into the commercial world, and thereafter I just took up opportunities as they arose with no real plan,” she said.

“For some, because I haven’t stuck at any one thing, I present as a unique proposition, but I find that having taken the opportunities as they have come along, I can see different industries very clearly.

“There is nothing that I have done that I don’t draw on in one way or another.”

Ms Tough is keenly interested in the interaction between industries, particularly oil and gas, metals and mining, infrastructure and energy.

It was the role of general manager of Woodside’s North West Shelf operations that boosted Ms Tough’s interest in energy provision, while working on the Pilbara Power Project in 2008 added further to her knowledge of, and passion for, the sector.

“When I started there were what I call seven tombstones that went before me, there had been seven previous attempts to identify it (a solution to power in the Pilbara) but it had been done from an engineering perspective,” she said.

“I came at it from a different perspective, commercial. The only real question was, what was going to be the governing regime in the Pilbara that would be acceptable to the existing players like Rio and BHP who had built their infrastructure and didn’t want to share it, and allow access for third parties?”

But around the time Ms Tough believed a strategy was close to being finalised, the project was shelved by the incoming Barnett government.

“It came to a quiet end and I guess became the eighth tombstone,” she said.

Ms Tough said her current position as a director at Murchison Metals had been challenging, with the company’s performance during the past years “problematic, with a capital P”.

In that time Murchison has announced major cost blowouts in its proposed iron ore and infrastructure projects in the Mid West and is in the process of selling its interests in those projects.

Murchison recently struck a deal with joint venture partner Mitsubishi to sell its interests in the Jack Hills iron ore project and Oakajee port and rail developments for $375 million, a deal Ms Tough said was a good outcome for the company’s shareholders.

“Based on my own assessment, and looking at the new directors who came in, I made an assessment that we could do something valuable here and potentially salvage some value for shareholders, and in my view that is exactly what we have done with the impending transaction,” she said.

As for the next move, Ms Tough is looking to take on an executive role to complement her directorships and also has her eye on an ASX100 board role.