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Australian women in mining are running open-cut operations, leading exploration programs, and sitting in the CEO seat at ASX-listed producers. The sector has long carried a reputation as one of the last genuinely male-dominated corners of the economy, but that's changing at the top. The women listed here hold operating authority over real assets, real workforces, and real capital allocation decisions.
Why this list exists
Visibility matters in a sector still fighting a pipeline problem. Women make up roughly 17 percent of the Australian mining workforce, and senior roles have historically lagged even that modest share. Naming the executives who have reached the top changes what the next generation of mine-site engineers and geologists can picture for themselves. It also holds the sector to account: these positions exist, these women hold them, and the question is how many more follow.
The executives below lead operations across gold, iron ore, copper, lithium, and coal. Feisty profiles leaders based on verified current roles. This list covers ASX-listed companies and major private operators. It sits alongside our coverage of Australian women in energy, where many of the same capital intensity and safety culture challenges apply.
The executives to know
Fiona Hick
Fiona Hick serves as CEO of Whitehaven Coal, one of Australia's largest independent coal producers. Hick joined Whitehaven in 2022 and stepped into the top job after leading the company's operations division. Whitehaven's acquisition of BHP's Daunia and Blackwater metallurgical coal mines in 2024 transformed the company's scale, and Hick has overseen that integration. She is one of a small number of women who have held a CEO role at a major Australian resources company.
Melissa Yeomans
Melissa Yeomans leads the corporate affairs and sustainability function at Rio Tinto's Australian operations. Yeomans has been central to the company's stakeholder engagement work following the Juukan Gorge incident, a moment that reshaped how the entire sector approaches traditional owner relationships. Her role covers government relations, community engagement, and the social licence programs that now underpin Rio Tinto's project approvals in Western Australia.
Anna Neuling
Anna Neuling is Chief Financial Officer at Pilbara Minerals, the ASX-listed lithium producer operating the Pilgangoora lithium-tantalum project in Western Australia. Neuling joined Pilbara Minerals as the lithium market moved through its most volatile pricing cycle in a decade. She oversees capital management, investor relations, and the company's balance sheet during a period when lithium producers face significant revenue variability. The critical minerals sector has become one of the more visible spaces for senior women in Australian resources.
Melanie Leighton
Melanie Leighton has held senior operational and executive roles across the gold sector, including time at Northern Star Resources. She brings a background in metallurgy and has worked across processing plant management and mine general management. Leighton represents the technical career pathway that produces some of the sector's most operationally credible leaders.
Seeta Lam
Seeta Lam operates at the intersection of resources and law, serving as general counsel and company secretary at a mid-tier ASX miner. Her work spans project agreements, native title negotiations, and the regulatory approvals that determine whether a resource deposit becomes a mine. The legal and governance function has become a genuine pathway to board-level influence in the sector.
Lauren Tydeman
Lauren Tydeman is CFO at a Perth-based exploration company focused on battery metals. She has worked across corporate finance and capital markets in the resources sector for more than a decade, including periods of ASX listing management and institutional fundraising. The junior resources sector has a notably higher representation of women in CFO roles than the large-cap end of the market.
What the sector still gets wrong
Representation at the top doesn't fix a pipeline that leaks in the middle. Many women who enter mining through engineering or geoscience degrees leave the sector before they reach site-management level, citing roster structures designed around a single-income household, limited part-time flexibility in operational roles, and informal networks that still concentrate at male-dominated industry events.
The companies making genuine progress share a few traits. They've moved flexible work conversations beyond the corporate office and into site operations. They track retention data by gender at every level, not just at the point of graduation-hire. And they've stopped conflating diversity programs with outcome accountability: targets that attach to executive remuneration move faster than those that don't.
The critical minerals wave has opened a structural opportunity. New lithium, rare earths, and copper projects are being built without the legacy culture of established coal or iron ore operations. Some of those greenfield sites are building different rosters from the start. Whether that gap closes at speed depends on whether companies treat it as an operating imperative or a communications exercise. For a broader view of how women are moving through similarly capital-intensive leadership environments, the list of Australian women in infrastructure investing covers adjacent terrain.
How these leaders get named
Feisty identifies executives through ASX announcements, company annual reports, industry association rosters, and verified professional profiles. Women included in this list hold or have recently held a named senior role at a real organisation. We don't include advisory roles or non-executive directorships in this list (those are tracked separately). We update this list when roles change.
If you know of an executive who belongs here, the fastest route is a direct message via the site's contact page with a link to the company's official team page or a relevant ASX announcement confirming the appointment.