2019 - Present
Principal @ Whittle-DG Pty Ltd

2022 - Present
PROFESSOR (PRACTICE) @ MONASH UNIVERSITY

Assignments (Whittle-DG and Monash) include:

• Review of major investment decisions for a major mine (gold)

• Life of Mine plan 2024 (copper open pit)

• Facilitator of an Australian/Indian workshop series on critical minerals supply chains

• Life of Mine plan 2023 (copper open pit)

• Underground mine strategic study (copper-zinc)

• Cofounder - Resources Trinity

• Mining intensity global benchmarking and strategy (open pit)

• Life of Mine plan 2022 (copper open pit)

• In-mine recovery analysis (copper)

• Open-pit to underground transition analysis (copper)

• Resource development potential study (copper-zinc open pit)

• Cofounder - Critical Minerals Consortium

• Study into post-mining alternatives for a Victorian quarry operation.

• Consulting to a major copper mine in South America in support of their long-term planning.

2015 - 2019 Underground Mine Plan Optimization Research

David has completed a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the University of Melbourne. His topic was ‘Underground mine plan optimization’.

2006 - 2014 Strategic Planning Functional Leadership

In 2006, David joined BHP Billiton, working on projects including Corporation Alignment Planning (a new annual cycle of planning), Organizational Design and the Productivity Project. In 2014, David became the Senior Manager for Resource Planning and Development for Project Polaris, a major initiative to make step changes in the company’s development and delivery of capital projects over $250m.

During his time with BHP Billiton, David developed the global processes for long term Asset planning and provided training and facilitation to all Assets in BHP Billiton. During this time he also wrote the chapter “Open Pit Planning and Design” for the Society of Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME) Mine Engineering Handbook.

1991 - 2006 Strategic Mine Planning Software

After starting as Business Manager in Whittle Programming Pty Ltd in 1991, David became Managing Director (1998). Whittle Programming Pty Ltd was the original developer of the famous Whittle Strategic Mine Planning software. Following listing on the Australian Stock Exchange, he became a Director of the newly formed Whittle Technology Ltd (2000). After the sale of their software division to Gemcom Software International (2001), David moved to Canada where he spent five years as the Whittle Product Manager and Vice President Marketing.

During this time David made contributions to the academic field of strategic mine planning, developing and refining multiple models in areas such as integration of stochastic liberation prediction with pit optimization; combined pit and blend optimization; ore/waste discrimination methods, mining direction, split shell implementation and the use of set theory to utilize conditionally simulated models in pit optimization. He also convened international Strategic Mine Planning conferences, and developed and delivered strategic mine planning courses in Australia, USA, Canada, Brazil, Chile and South Africa.