About

Francesca Lee first joined Australian mining firm Newcrest as general counsel and company secretary in March 2014, and in carrying out her role uses a wealth of knowledge pertaining to the mining sector to advise her peers on both legal and business issues relevant to the company’s operations. With a strong background in the sector, Lee’s previous role before joining Newcrest was as general counsel and company secretary of OZ Minerals from 2008 until 2014, and its antecedent companies from 2003.

Lee can draw on more than 30 years of experience working across various senior legal and commercial roles within the mining industry, including with notable Australian companies BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Comalco, including as general manager for internal audit and risk whilst at Rio Tinto. Despite her unquestionable in-house legal capabilities in the mining industry, Lee can also point to a range of other positions and achievements in her career that prove her as being a truly all-round professional worthy of recognition. She was a member of the Australian government’s takeovers panel between 2009 and 2015, has been on the board of the Metropolitan Waste Management Group and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Victoria and is a member of Chief Executive Women. A keen advocate of gender diversity for many years, Lee has been at the forefront of programs to advance women into leadership roles and to attract more women into the Newcrest organisation.