Article by NICHOLAS WILSON, courtesy of Daily Mail
10.12.2025
Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has paid tribute to the little-known engineer behind her multibillion-dollar mining empire.
As the executive director of Hancock Prospecting, Australia’s largest private company, Tad Watroba has quietly steered some of the nation’s biggest mining projects, alongside Mrs Rinehart, for more than 30 years.
On Wednesday night, the $40billion businesswoman will mark the tenth anniversary of the first ore shipment made from the mine, praising Mr Watroba’s role in getting the $10bn project up and running.
‘Taddie stuck in there with magnificent dedication, loyalty and integrity throughout,’ Mrs Rinehart will say, in a recorded speech to be played at a staff dinner at Roy Hill and extracts of which were obtained by the Daily Mail.
Mrs Rinehart referred to Mr Watroba as a ‘gentleman I have been able to trust for more than three decades, who has worked with me tirelessly day and night’.
‘Together, Taddie and I worked late, gave up weekends, birthdays. We even worked on two Christmas Days.
‘I thank Tad for his magnificent commitment and for helping Hancock and me, and our partners, to realise our vision for the mega mining operation which Roy is.’
Born in Poland, Mr Watroba graduated from Krakow’s AGH University of Science and Technology in 1973, before beginning his mining career in his home country.
He emigrated to Australia in the 1980s, joining Bechtel Asia-Pacific in Melbourne as a senior engineer, before moving into gold mine finance consulting in Perth in 1991.
It was there he answered a Hancock Prospecting job advertisement, initially overseeing the Woodie Woodie mine and pursuing exploration in Thailand.
In an interview with CEO Magazine in 2021, Watroba described himself as ‘the most fortunate mining engineer there is’, having overseen mega projects from exploration to operation.
One of his defining roles came with the Roy Hill iron ore project, Hancock’s $10billion mega-mine and among Australia’s largest, producing 55million tonnes annually.
Mrs Rinehart will mark the tenth anniversary of Roy Hill’s first ore shipment to South Korea on Wednesday, recalling the challenges faced by her relatively small private firm.
‘Advice I received at the time included “The Roy project is far too big for us, we can’t do (it),”’ she said, adding doubts over its viability continued well after they obtained the rights to the mine.
Mr Watroba worked closely with Mrs Rinehart to navigate regulatory hurdles, government approvals, port and rail negotiations, and the completion of a feasibility study.
‘Taddie stuck in there with magnificent dedication, loyalty and integrity throughout. He was an inspiration to others,’ Mrs Rinehart said.
The admiration is clearly mutual, with Mr Watroba saying the firm was ‘very lucky’ when Mrs Rinehart took over from her father, Lang Hancock, as chair in 1992.
‘Her focus and determination to grow the business was not only compelling but contagious,’ he told CEO Magazine in 2021.
‘She made us believe that what was seemingly impossible was definitely possible. And we did it together.’
Mrs Rinehart has said Hancock Prospecting, which holds a reported $43.5bn in net assets, was effectively bankrupt when she took it over three decades ago.
Roy Hill mine remains the firm’s biggest undertaking, having posted more than $1.8bn in the last financial year, according to records shared by the firm last month.
This was a dramatic drop from the $3.2bn recorded the year prior, which Mrs Rinehart chalked up to government red tape and high electricity costs.
‘We need to better understand that excessive government tape, regulations and taxes, intermittent, unreliable and, by international standards, high cost electricity, do nothing to enable higher productivity or halt the decline in our international competitiveness,’ Mrs Rinehart said at the time.
She added Australians ‘simply cannot afford’ the massive public and private expenses involved in the Albanese government’s push towards net zero.
