"Taking the bull by the horns": How Gabrielle Mudge champions people, purpose and positive change in mining

When Gabrielle Mudge, FAusIMM speaks about her career, what shines through most is her passion for people - for their development, their wellbeing, and their potential. And perhaps that makes perfect sense, because from the moment she joined Accenture more than 20 years ago as a fresh graduate analyst, she has been shaped by leaders who saw something in her she couldn’t yet fully see in herself. 

Now, as the Client Account Lead for one of Accenture’s largest global mining clients, Gabrielle leads a complex, multifaceted account that spans strategic advisory, commercial work, new technologies, delivery excellence, and on-the-ground teams across Australia. She oversees a workforce of more than a thousand people who support the client globally in shaping the mine of the future. 

But Gabrielle’s path to mining wasn’t a straight line. Her first decade at Accenture was spent deep in transformation programs in communications, media, and technology. “I was really fortunate,” she reflects. “Those early projects gave me insight into how big organisations actually make change, not through one big moment, but through individual actions every day.” 

Those lessons became the foundation for her move into the resources sector, where she has spent the past 10–12 years helping mining organisations solve some of their most complex strategic and operational challenges. And in the process, she has built a career defined not just by capability, but by connection, mentorship, and a deep belief in people. 

Seeing mining up close: “It completely changed my perspective” 

Having worked with mining clients for many years, Gabrielle’s first site visit brought the industry’s full scale and complexity into sharp focus. Each year she tries to get out to the Pilbara and spending time with the 100+ Accenture team members who work onsite. 

“The scale is insane,” she says. “Seeing the supply chain in person, the coordination from pit to port, the energy, the frontline effort, it gives you a perspective you just can’t get from sitting in an office.” 

Like many people from outside the sector, she once saw mining as “dirty, complex, and distant.” She laughs telling the story of returning from site with bright orange hair from the iron ore dust. But beyond the dirt, she saw something more profound: mining’s importance to modern life, and the humanity behind the work. 

“People don’t connect that their mobile phone, their car, their lights — they all come from mining,” she explains. “Spending time on site helps you demystify it, and I try to help others see that too.” 

That includes her 11-year-old daughter, who wandered into the room one evening while Gabrielle was watching a market briefing. Seeing images of pits and blasts, she asked: “Who are the villains? Why are they blowing up the Earth?” It sparked a conversation about copper in the ceiling lights, minerals in technology, and the responsibility of mining to innovate with care. 

“She said, ‘Can you do it a little bit more gently?’” Gabrielle recalls. “And I told her: that’s exactly why I’m here. Because working in the industry gives us the opportunity to make it better.” 

Driving Positive Change Together: “You don’t need a title to be a leader” 

For Gabrielle, this year’s International Women’s Day theme – Driving Positive Change Together – comes down to collaboration, inclusion, and creating an environment where people can show up as themselves. 

“There’s this misconception that change happens through big programs,” she says. “But really, the everyday actions matter most, the conversations, the behaviours you refuse to walk past, the biases you call out.” 

At Accenture, she sees this in the way people lead across all levels of the organisation. There are formal ally groups, inclusion initiatives, and global programs, but Gabrielle believes culture lives in the moments between people, the decisions, the language, the openness to difference. 

Recently, she challenged a colleague who critiqued a team member’s presentation style. “I said, ‘You’re judging them based on your expectation of charisma. They’re from a different cultural background. Did the message land? Yes.’” It was a reminder that inclusion requires intention, awareness, and sometimes a willingness to call out blind spots. 

“You don’t have to be senior to lead,” she says. “Everyone has agency. Everyone can choose whether they create a culture of respect or undermine it.” 

She loves that clients in the mining sector that were once associated with a more traditional leadership mould are increasingly embracing diversity of style and background. She speaks with admiration of the CIO she works with, who was recently named an ambassador for Women in Tech and who “surrounds himself with people from every kind of background imaginable.” 

“It’s proof the mould is breaking,” she says. “And it’s exciting to be part of that shift.” 

Stewardship, sponsorship and “Taking the bull by the horns” 

One of the strongest threads running through Gabrielle’s career is stewardship - the responsibility to lift others as she was lifted. Over two decades, she has been supported by five key sponsors who have known her since her early days at Accenture. 

“They’ve often seen potential in me that I didn’t recognise in myself,” she says. “I’ve underestimated myself so many times, and they’ve pushed me, gently and sometimes not so gently, to step into new challenges.” 

Her very first manager, she laughs, had a mantra she still hears in her head: “Take the bull by the horns, Gab.” 

It became a guiding philosophy. Capability is built, not bestowed. Courage grows through action. And that discomfort usually means growth. 

That advice helped her navigate moments when people doubted her suitability for senior mining roles. Some questioned her age or assumed she lacked the “mining mould.” She remembers having to point out, with a smile, that she had been at Accenture for two decades, she was hardly a newcomer. But the scepticism only fuelled her determination. 

“There were people who believed in me, and that mattered more,” she says. “And now it’s my job to do the same for others.” 

Her favourite part of the job today? Mentoring. Her “thinking time,” she admits, is usually filled with one-on-one conversations, helping colleagues navigate challenges, make decisions, or simply feel heard. 

“If you’re not giving back, what’s the point?” she asks. “It’s the privilege of age, of experience and of staying long enough in an organisation to understand how to help others succeed.” 

Leadership lessons: Humanity, courage and moments that matter 

When asked about the best leadership advice she’s ever received, Gabrielle shares a moment from an unexpected chapter - her pregnancy with her second child. 

A sponsor called her and said: “What we do day to day, we’re not saving lives. But you’re creating one. Honour that.” 

It was a grounding moment, a reminder that careers ebb and flow and that life’s personal milestones deserve attention and care. She now passes that advice along to others, men and women alike, who are burning the candle at both ends while navigating sleepless nights, personal struggles, or major life transitions. 

“It’s about looking around and noticing where people are at,” she says. “Giving them permission to prioritise what really matters at that moment in time.” 

Her other favourite piece of wisdom is simpler: Say yes. Especially when you feel scared. 

“Women often wait until everything’s perfect,” she says. “But courage is saying yes before you feel ready.” 

She encourages her teams to embrace reinvention and to see their careers not as a single fixed path but as chapters that can evolve every one to two years. 

“Why can’t you try something new? Why can’t you change direction? Reinvention isn’t just possible, it’s healthy.” 

Technology, transformation and the human element

Given her work at the intersection of mining and technology, Gabrielle is energised by the potential of new and emerging technologies, especially AI, to help solve both big and small problems across the sector. 

She’s realistic about the challenges ahead, particularly data requirements and environmental considerations of largescale infrastructure like data centres. But she sees immense opportunity in using AI to enhance safety, streamline operations, improve reporting accuracy, and support decision making. 

Mining, she believes, will be a “fast follower” but a powerful one. 

“The key,” she says, “is ensuring human agency remains at the centre. Technology is a catalyst, but people decide how we use it.” 

It's clear that to Gabrielle, technology isn’t the story, people are. 

The purpose behind the work 

Years ago, Gabrielle was asked to strip back her motivations - why she works, beyond providing for her family or progressing her career. Layer by layer, peeling back the onion, she realised her purpose always came back to stewardship, the ability to shape, support, and develop others. 

Her sponsors see the shift in her too. “They tell me they’ve watched me evolve and that now I’m stepping into the mentor role they once played for me.” It’s the natural life cycle of leadership, and one that Gabrielle steps into with joy. 

“It’s up to me now,” she says. “And I love it.” 

A leader who shows up for others 

Whether she’s championing inclusion, cheering on a colleague trying something new, challenging biases, supporting a team through transformation, or explaining copper wiring to an 11-year-old, Gabrielle leads with warmth and conviction. 

The mining sector may not have been the world she envisioned early in her career, but today it’s where she’s found her purpose and where she’s helping shape a more inclusive, innovative and humancentred future. 

“Driving positive change together,” she says, “means showing up as yourself, giving others the space to do the same, and remembering that leadership isn’t about title, it’s about behaviour.” 

And if that behaviour includes taking the bull by the horns? 
Well, Gabrielle wouldn’t have it any other way.