Established as a local, family owned business in the Hunter region in 1995, PERSAS has grown to become an industry leader in providing specialised products and support to heavy industry and mining companies.

Brett Williamson is the Managing Director at PERSAS, with over twenty years of experience in providing one-stop mining solutions for clients in the Hunter, as well as across Australia.

Brett also has a Diploma of Business Management from the University of Ballarat, is an avid supporter of local sporting teams and charity events and believes in giving back to the local community where possible.

• What makes a good leader?

I think a good leader is someone that can basically communicate with each person and  develop each person, as they come along and progress throughout their work life. It’s someone they can gain trust from. Someone that can lead by example.

We work hard to lead by example in my management team. Basically we get people’s strengths and also find the strengths and weaknesses of each person and work with what that and bring them along.

• What do you believe has shaped your leadership style?

I think the fact that I started at a junior role and have worked my way up through all the different roles, I can actually understand and appreciate what each role requires to do that job to the best of my ability. And then I can go back and with each of those roles work with those people to bring the best out of them.

I do believe that respect is earned not forced, so I work really hard to earn the respect of all my staff members. And if I do that and I have a good relationship with our staff, I’ll get a better productivity out of each of those staff members, and it’s a more fun place to work.

• What motivates and drives you?

The business is heading up to 35 years old, and so in that time business has changed quite a lot from where we started to where we are now, and there’s obviously a lot of growth. So, for me to maintain the productivity as well as the quality of what we put out in services and products, that’s a really big driving force.

A big driving force is to maintain a sustainable workshop and place for my people to work. We’re all a big family, so I’ve essentially got a large workforce that we are responsible for. So, that drives me every day to make sure that they all have a sustainable workshop, a place to work, they’re all happy, and we produce quality products and services.

• How have you made your business a leader in your industry?

Basically by reviewing where we are. We constantly review every process, every product, and we basically analyse that to see where we can change, what we can improve, we listen to our clients.

We talk to our clients constantly about what do they need to make their workshop or their environment safer and more productive, and then we implement that. And then we go back and review again. So we’re constantly evolving, the business what it is now is 100 per cent different to what it was ten years ago, and I’m sure we’ll be different again in five more years.

You’ve got to evolve with your markets; you’ve got to constantly find out what the client needs, so we have quite good mediums out there constantly talking to our clients about what they need, what their requirements are.

And I think if you can tie all that in with a good workforce that are happy, then your business will be successful.

• What local businessperson do you find inspiring?

John Armstrong from J&S Engineering in Rutherford. So, John started a small engineering company, and from that he has managed to grow as a market leader, and to do that John has persevered with just the quality of his products.

He hasn’t fallen to the trap of a lot of other companies by reducing his selling costs to pick up the low-selling fruit that was happening in the Valley. He’s maintained his integrity, his levels of quality, his levels to service, and he’s grown an impressive business. And it’s pretty impressive what he’s done.