Former BHP and Woodside executive Erica Smyth remembered as ‘game-changer’ for women in the resources industry

Former BHP and Woodside Energy executive Erica Smyth has been remembered as “a gamechanger” for women in the resources industry, a mentor and an influential company director. Dr Smyth, a Geraldton-born geologist who was one of the first women to crack the senior executive ranks of Australia’s major resources companies, has died aged 73 after a short illness. Research collaboration MinEx CRC, where she was a non-executive director, said Dr Smyth was a trail-blazer for professional women in Australia. “Over nearly 40 years in the minerals and petroleum sectors, she carved a path at a time when few women were given the opportunity, let alone a voice,” MinEx CRC said. “From her early days as a young geologist in the bush, through key leadership roles at BHP, BHP-Utah, BHP Petroleum and Woodside, to her later career as a highly respected company director, Erica shaped conversations, projects and people across the Australian resources landscape.” Former Federal Resources and Energy Minister Gary Gray, who worked with Dr Smyth at Woodside when Shell tried to buy the Australian company in 2000, said she played a significant part in both building the modern mining industry in WA and supporting women. “Look at women in commanding roles in the resources industry around the world now; literally Erica was the first to make that mark,” Mr Gray said. According to Screenwest, which Dr Smyth chaired between 2007 and 2012, she served on more than 60 boards and committees over her life, contributing to both business and the not-for-profit sector. Among other roles, she was a chair of the ASX-listed Toro Energy and Diabetes Research WA, and a board member of the Royal Flying Doctor Service in WA, the Henry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, listed mining services group Emeco Holdings and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. Dr Smyth was the inaugural winner of the Chamber of Minerals and Energy’s Women in Resources award in 2010 and was was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours list for her services to the mining and energy industries. The RFDS, where Dr Smyth was a board member for nine years, said she “played a key role in advocating for our service and championing the health needs of regional and remote communities”. Dr Smyth only discovered geology after initially focusing on chemistry as part of a science degree at the University of WA. She cut her teeth working for BHP in Newman when women were still a rarity on WA mining sites. “I stood out in a crowd,” Dr Smyth recalled in an interview 10 years ago, adding she didn’t think she suffered discrimination. “You had to learn very quickly how to behave and I decided very early on that I was not going to out-men the men,” she said. “I didn’t do the foul language or super dirty jokes or any of that sort of thing. “In those days, men moderated their behaviour in front of a woman anyway. “I found that you have to display the behaviour you want shown to you.” Dr Smyth rose through the ranks at BHP to become principal geologist at BHP Minerals and then project manager of the ill-fated Beenup industrial minerals project in WA’s South West for BHP-Utah Minerals International. She moved to BHP Petroleum as its manager, gas market development in WA before jumping ship to Woodside as general manager of corporate affairs.