Joy Krige has spent her career in male-dominated industries and in recent years has seen a big shift in workplace attitudes.
Joy Krige has a no-nonsense way of describing her workplace experience over the past 20 years in mining services.
“I’m used to being the only woman in a room; it’s just the way it has been,” she said.
The recently appointed Cranecorp chief executive provides a good barometer on the treatment of women in the sector.
“It’s quite refreshing. In the last couple of years I’ve seen significant change in that landscape and more supportive women coming in at higher levels, which is great to see,” Ms Krige told Business News.
The positive change is coming off a low base from her early days in the sector.
“To be honest, in those days I don’t think having a female leader in mining services was really even considered,” she said.
“Things have changed a lot.”
Ms Krige grew up in South Africa and built her own successful crane hire business from scratch.
She acknowledges her gender made it more difficult but her resilience won out.
“I’ve had challenges over the years, normally quite subtle, never blatant,” she said.
“I won’t say it hasn’t been an issue, but it hasn’t been anything I haven’t been able to manage.
“I have supportive teams around me, I work hard, I get involved with what’s going on and I think I end up earning the respect of the team around me.”
Reflecting on the treatment of female workers in the fly-in, fly-out mining sector, Ms Krige is encouraged by progress to date.
“It’s improving, people are more aware, but we are not there yet,” she said.
“There has been a lot of focus on reducing alcohol on site and I think that goes a long way to taking away some of the issues.” Improved security in mine camps and better spaces for employees to relax are other changes she has observed. The ultimate test is how Ms Krige thinks about her own family. “I would feel safe putting my daughter on a plane now; maybe not when I started ten years ago,” she said. “If one of them had decided to go into mining, I’d feel comfortable sending them there.”
Expansion
Ms Krige joined Cranecorp in January, nearly four years after private investment group Viburnum acquired a majority shareholding in a deal believed to be worth about $50 million.
With Viburnum providing financial backing alongside Cranecorp founder Rick Musarra, the business has expanded substantially. When Viburnum acquired a 60 per cent stake in the business in 2020, it had a fleet of about 60 cranes. That has grown to nearly 100, ranging in capacity from 15 tonnes to 500t. The expanded fleet has underpinned growth in income, with the company on track to have annual revenue of $60 million in the year to June 2024. Ms Krige’s goal is to continue that growth and, like many other businesses in Western Australia, a big part of her strategy is about getting the right people on board.
“Getting the right people, with the right attitude and the right safety focus, I think that is everybody’s problem at the moment,” Ms Krige said.
“We have the customers, we have the work. It’s just a matter of being able to supply it.”
Competitors
While Cranecorp has grown to be one of the larger players in the WA market, it is a minnow compared to the big operators that dominate the sector.
These include international company Mammoet, which claims to have the largest fleet of heavy lifting equipment in the world.
It has been operating in Australia for 25 years.
Another big competitor is Belgian company Sarens, which describes itself as the global leader in crane rental services, heavy lifting and engineered transport.
It has more than 4,000 employees across 65 countries and has been in Australia for more than a decade.
A third major competitor is Freo Group, which describes itself as the largest crane hire company in Australia.
Founded in Perth 50 years ago, Freo Group has a fleet of nearly 500 mobile cranes and 1,000 people across 21 depots nationally.
It has expanded across the country since Canada’s Marmon Crane Services – part of Warren Buffett’s famed investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway – bought the business from the Canci family for an estimated $160 million in 2011.
Freo’s growth has been aided by the acquisition of UCH Cranes and WGC Cranes on the east coast.
Ms Krige believes Cranecorp’s size gives it an edge.
“I think we are a little bit different in that we are probably a bit more agile than they are,” she said.
“We have the benefit of the backing of Viburnum but we don’t have the structures that hold them back.”
To compete more effectively against the big players, Cranecorp has a joint venture with Tutt Bryant, which is a major player in its own right with about 500 employees across 30 locations nationally.
Tutt Bryant is owned by Singapore-based Tat Hong Holdings, a privately held company with a fleet of more than 1,200 mobile, crawler and tower cranes.
Tat Hong is ranked as a top 10 crane owner and operator globally and has been described as the largest player in the Asian market.
Cranecorp’s fleet of mobile cranes and slew cranes are complemented by Tutt Bryant’s fleet of crawlers, which have a larger lifting capacity up to 1,600t.
“We go on quite a few tenders with them because it allows us to respond more fully to our customers,” Ms Krige said.
Career path
Ms Krige’s early career was far removed from crane hire and mining services.
She started her working life as an auditor with accounting firm Andersen before becoming finance director for a technology business in South Africa.
With two young children and “crazy long hours”, she reached a point where she needed a change.
The move into the crane business was sparked by her brother-in-law, who imported second-hand cranes from Japan.
“I remember calling my brotherin-law and saying, ‘I just can’t do this’,” she said.
“So he said, ‘Why don’t you bring in a crane and sell it and that will give you the money you need’.”
Ms Krige wasn’t content with just importing and selling.
“I had an opportunity to hire the crane, so I learned the ropes and built that business up to twenty cranes,” she said.
Ms Krige migrated to Australia after selling her business, initially with the idea she might retire. Instead, she pursued her next career opportunity, calling Tony Canci at Freo Group, who was looking for a commercial manager.
That was in 2013, shortly after Freo Group had completed the Berkshire Hathaway deal. With Mark Warner firmly ensconced as chief executive, Ms Krige decided after a year to seek a new opportunity.
That led to her joining Michelin subsidiary Fenner Conveyors, the major supplier of conveyor belts to the mining industry in the Pilbara.
Installing, splicing, and maintaining conveyor belts is a tough industry and Ms Krige thrived, rising to be executive general manager.
“It was very hands-on, pretty much like I am now,” she said.
“I was up on site, talking to the guys in the field, talking to the customers, and I loved it because you can talk to the GMs in St Georges Terrace and you can talk to the site supervisor.
“Those diverse relationships, that’s what I really enjoyed about it.”
After nine years, Ms Krige took a break. Then, the Cranecorp opportunity beckoned. “This opportunity came along, and it just aligned with everything,” she said.
“Rick starting the business, driving the cranes, and building it up from one crane. “It just resonated with me because that’s what I was like at that stage [of starting my own business], you just jump in and do what you have to do.
“And while it’s a big business, it still has the value system of a family business. “Everybody just gets stuck in and does what you need to do.”
From her time at Fenner, Ms Krige knows some of Cranecorp’s major customers, particularly the big iron ore miners such as Roy Hill, Rio Tinto and BHP.
Cranecorp also does a lot of business in the Goldfields, in commodities such as gold, nickel and lithium.
It has also built a substantial presence in defence.
That reflects the company’s origins: Mr Musarra started trading as Goldfields Crane Hire in Kalgoorlie 1994.
The business later moved into the state’s north-west, the Northern Territory and Perth, and changed its name to Cranecorp in 2014.
The business made more than $10 million in acquisitions in the four years to 2018, buying Geraldton company MRM Crane Hire in 2014 and assets from Canning Vale-based Force Cranes in 2018.
The largest was the purchase of assets from Port Hedland business Gravity Cranes in 2017.
Ms Krige said she had a lot of support from the company’s board of directors, which comprises chairman Rod Evans, Mr Musarra and Viburnum executives Marshall Allen and James O’Mahony.
“They are quite actively involved. It’s not like a big conglomerate,” she said.
“I talk to the board two or three times a week.”
Ms Krige also highlighted the diversity of experience, with Mr Musarra being a veteran of the crane industry while the Viburnum representatives bring fresh ideas drawn from their diverse portfolio of investments.
People focus
Ms Krige has a clear priority for the business.
“What we will need to do when we focus on growth is look at it a little bit differently and focus on where the challenges are,” she said.
“So I see it as focusing on the people.
“We need to get the right people and invest in them because that will differentiate us for our customers and from there take the next step.”
Ms Krige said the business would also invest in more cranes.
“The biggest challenge we have in growing the business is getting the right people to operate the cranes,” she said.
Ms Krige said operators (crane drivers) need years of experience and training before they can operate 500t cranes, the largest in the company’s fleet.
To boost training of both operators and riggers, Cranecorp has recruited a chief of people and culture from Fenner.
Ms Krige also believes crane operators should be added to the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List so companies such as Cranecorp can recruit experienced operators from overseas.
“We need to get them onto that list; that would really benefit the industry,” she said.
“We did it [at Fenner] with belt splicers really successfully, bringing them from Indonesia.
“For most shutdowns, we are turning down work because we just can’t get the operators who can operate safely.
“We’d rather say ‘no’ than send somebody who isn’t skilled.
“And we wouldn’t be the only people to experience that.”
