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Thank you to PESA (Petroleum Equipment & Services Association) for being a proud sponsor of this episode.

President and COO of Black Mountain Metals, nicknamed the Nickel Queen, listed in Forbes 30 under 30 and now pioneering frac in Western Australia, there isn’t much Ashley Zumwalt-Forbes has not accomplished. Did we mention she just turned 30?

In this Episode Ashely talks with Jamie and Massiel on how she made her way to becoming one of the leading females in the mining & O&G industry at age 28. She then went on and co-founded a second company-  Black Mountain Exploration, based in Dallas but operating in Australia.

Growing up in a hard working family in Oklahoma, Ashley learned that if she wanted something she would have to put in the work to get it. She was one of the first to attend University in her Family. Ashley knew she wanted to leave her hometown and travel. This is what drove her to go to OU to become a petroleum engineer. During Ashley’s first internship with Exxon she developed a close relationship with a few key people on her team. These individuals ended up as her mentors and she was one of the only 2 engineers that year, that got selected for a full time job on the Exploration team. Although she was a rising star at Exxon, she began to feel like something was missing. She knew she didn’t want to continue to work for a large corporation. She always wanted to be entrepreneurial and decided to go get her MBA at Harvard.

Ashley took a bet on herself, left a high paying job to go to Harvard on her own dime. She took full advantage of the Harvard network and met some folks that changed the course of her life. Through the network and posting her resume, she met Rhett the CEO of Black Mountain. After 4 months working for Rhett Bennett, she Co-Founded Black Mountain Metals, then in 2019 she acquired 1.7 million acres in Australia Co-founding Black Mountain Exploration. Ashley describes her journey and how she Co-Founded companies without having any knowledge, at the time on mining and electrification. Nickel is widely used in batteries, with the increased need for batteries in electric cars Ashley knew this would be a great opportunity for a business. Ashley walks us through her process in creating the team that helped found Black Mountain Metals for battery metals. 

Black Widow is Ashley’s nickname in Western Australia, due to the purchase of Mitsubishi land assets in Australia, to start one of the first frac projects in over 5 years in the Canning Basin. With the lack of information in the area and fear mongering on fracking has led to public concerns. Ashley provides advice on how she deals with backlash from the community and her reasoning for wanting to frac the gas play. 

Ashley talks about work life balance, she follows the “seasons theory”. Meaning that every season has a beginning and an end. Ashley is the President for a company based in Forth Worth with operations in Australia, she has first hand experience with balancing different time zones and her relationship. 

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