Unearthing Innovation: Mark Bowater and Ben Myall on Modern Mining

Join Melissa Rizzuto as she welcomes Mark Bowater and Ben Myall, two Australian mining experts and new members of the Explica team, who are bringing their decades of global experience to Calgary. This episode delves into their remarkable careers and their shared passion for revolutionizing an industry often overlooked for innovation. They discuss the frustratingly slow adoption of advanced planning methods in mining and highlight how Explica's Oxygen platform, with its cutting-edge AI agents and stochastic scheduling capabilities, offers a game-changing solution to embrace real-world variability and drive more confident, realistic decision-making. Explore their vision for overcoming industry challenges, simplifying complexity, and ensuring a sustainable future for vital resources. Thank you for listening to the Leaders, Innovators and Big Ideas podcast where we showcase fascinating people who are Leaders, Innovators, and have Big Ideas! HOSTMelissa Rizzuto Melissa is a talent acquisition and recruitment strategy professional with 20 years of experience partnering with founders and leadership teams to build high-performing teams, improve hiring processes, and create meaningful candidate experiences. Her background spans full-cycle recruitment, recruitment technology, employer branding, and recruitment marketing. A lifelong Calgarian, Melissa holds a Bachelor of Kinesiology from the University of Calgary, an Executive Leadership Certificate from eCornell University, and a Mini MBA in Engineering & Technology Management from Rutgers Business School. She is also actively involved in community initiatives, including 17 years with the UNICEF Water for Life Gala and volunteer work supporting newcomers through Immigrant Services Calgary. Outside of work, Melissa enjoys dogs, sports, creative writing, and keeping up with emerging technology. GUESTSMark Bowater Mark Bowater is a mining engineer with more than 35 years of experience in the Australian and global open pit mining industry, spanning coal and metalliferous operations. He has held senior operational and technical roles, founded and led a successful mining consultancy, and worked across more than 50 mining operations. In recent years, Mark has shifted his focus toward working “on the industry” rather than in it—challenging conventional thinking and advancing how mine planning is understood and practiced. He is the author of Crimes Against Mine Planning and a recognised thought leader on the evolution of mine planning. Through his writing, speaking, and training, he advocates for a fundamental shift away from deterministic planning toward decision-centric approaches that better reflect the realities of uncertainty and variability. Mark is driven by a clear purpose: to leave mine planning in a better place than he found it. He is passionate about helping the industry rethink how mine planning is structured, how decisions are made, and how capability is developed—so that mine planning can better support operational performance and decision-making. Ben Myall Ben Myall, founder of MyallsAhead a Brisbane based mining engineering consultancy is focused on solving problems practically for Explica Inc. After completing his Engineering Degree at the University of Queensland, Ben spent 28 years working in the Queensland coal and bauxite mining industry. His last site role was as the operations manager at Andoom, managing 300 people, on the Cape York peninsula before moving to Brisbane with his family to join Rio Tinto's Surface Mining Centre of Excellence. Ben spends three months a year at Palm Beach on the Gold Coast walking the beaches with his wife. When his old body allows he body surfs with his two teenage sons, enjoying the Aussie Heat. LINKS & RESOURCESCrimes Against Mine Planning Mine Planning Matters Podcast MyallsAhead Consulting Talent Incubator Partners Mount Royal University Audio Rooms SHOW QUOTES"The glass is twice as big as it needed to be. Why didn't we just build half a glass?""I then visited that operation, and they were still using Excel... For me, that was that was probably a point of frustration.""This is cutting-edge. This, for me, when I really got to the bottom and understood sort of the the plans I could actually see that it was a game-changer in mining. I think the potential is there to... genuinely to move us into this century."CREDITSEpisode Music: Tony Del Degan Creator & Producer: Al Del Degan Sponsor: New Idea Machine Inc.