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Burks appointed associate director of MAC Consulting

24th July 2014

  

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Steve Burks has been appointed as an Associate Director of Johannesburg-based MAC Consulting, a broad-based management consulting group focused on mining, oil and gas, financial services, and telecommunications.

Mr Burks previously ran the African operations of Whittle Consulting, an Australian niche consultancy applying their novel mining value chain techniques and philosophy and utilising unique “Enterprise Optimisation” software. In this role, Mr Burks was responsible for all of Whittle’s African mining clients and studies. During the past four years, Burks managed  30 successful optimisation studies.

He worked closely with geologists, mining and metallurgical engineers, project teams, financial and commercial managers and logistics specialists employed by Whittle’s clients to identify opportunities to develop sustainable business solutions with significantly increased Net Present Value (NPV).

MAC and Whittle have a cooperative agreement whereby  they will collaborate on enterprise  optimisation studies followed by implementation of key recommendations. The integration of MAC and Whittle capabilities represents a major opportunity to assist mining undertakings to achieve step-changes in revenue generation. Whittle Consulting often quotes a range of 5 to 35% improvement in NPV.

“If we can realise this by implementing the recommendations effectively, then add even more to the NPV gain by identifying tactical efficiency gains throughout the whole value chain of an operation by applying the expertise within MAC and other specialist consultancies, we’ll have a unique consulting offering. I’m keenly looking forward to putting this in place for the benefit of MAC’s clients,” says Burks.

From 1992 to 2010 Burks also worked for Bateman Engineering. During this time, he was actively involved in:
• Metallurgical process test work, development and design including interaction with client  operations teams;
• Feasibility study and capital project delivery including supply chain and logistics challenges;
• Commercialisation of technology and continuous improvement of technical designs as well as organisational systems;
• Strategic planning, organisational design and implementation of business plans;
• Change management within a large international organisation; and
• The interaction between designing plants and ramping up their operation to full capacity as quickly as possible following commissioning.
All of this experience can be directly applied in his new role at MAC Consulting.
“At the moment,” he points out, “an operational readiness plan from MAC tends to look only at systems and procedures. Going forward, we will be able to bring technical input to that as well, calling on my own experience and our network of contacts in the service sector of the industry, supported by an ongoing relationship with Whittle Consulting.”

Ends.

About Steve Burks
After qualifying as a minerals processing engineer at the University of the Witwatersrand, Steve Burks began his career in operations in the platinum industry. He worked for Impala Platinum and Rand Mines at their smelter operations and was involved in the Owners’ teams of several expansions, upgrades and new projects.

In 1992 he moved from a production environment to contract project delivery and worked for Bateman Engineering from then until 2010. He started as a process engineer on smelter and refinery projects before moving into various management roles.

These included managing the feasibility study group for the African operation of Bateman after which he filled a global marketing and business development role in the platinum group metal and base metal sector.

From that role he was promoted in 2001 to Managing Director of the Bateman Metals business unit, responsible and accountable for the complete design, supply, construction and commissioning of metallurgical plants on several continents. The platinum group and base metals projects in question were significant, with capital costs of as much as $300 million.

Burks ran that business for about four years before being promoted to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Bateman. He was primarily tasked with commercialising process technology, the rights to which were acquired by entering into strategic cooperative agreements with the developers of each new process or equipment item. Bateman then marketed the technologies and implemented projects utilising them.

While he was CTO, Burks also worked on the initial public offering of Bateman in London, set up Bateman India (a new legal entity and business unit), led a small team responsible for change management throughout the group and participated in the company’s mergers & acquisitions investigation team.

Issued by:
Meropa Communications
Joanne Botha
011 506 7317 / 083 395 7076
joanneb@meropa.co.za

On behalf of:
MAC Consulting

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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