Arun Misra: An Epitome of Hardwork and Passion, Spearheading the Metal and Mining Industry with Tech

By S G Rickman On Sep 27, 2022

Hindustan Zinc is India’s only and among the world’s largest integrated producer of zinc-lead-silver. The company is a leader in Metal & Mining with experience and expertise of over half a century. Hindustan Zinc distinguishes itself as an organization rooted in business excellence, as a socially and environmentally responsible company, with a focus on value creation for all stakeholders. People, safety, and natural resource conservation are the pillars of its holistic value proposition, while technology and innovation are the driving engines of its extraordinary growth.

The Company’s total metal production for FY21 stands at 715,445 tonnes of Zinc, 214,399 tonnes of Lead, and 706 tonnes of Silver, which are all being de-bottlenecked to achieve a total metal production capacity of 1.2 MTPA. Through numerous community development activities, Hindustan Zin is impacting the lives of over 7,00,000 people. Community needs, national interests, and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are all addressed through its flagship initiatives. In FY21 alone, the company has invested INR 214 crore in CSR activities for the upliftment of communities around it. Hindustan Zinc is committed to Safe, Smart, and Sustainable mining with a great focus on ESG practices. It has already laid out a roadmap to become Net-Zero by 2050, with plans to invest over US$1 billion to go green over the next five years. Its recognition also exemplifies its ESG approach, ranking 5th Globally in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and being a part of the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook for 5 years.

An Astute Leader Bestowing the Tech Approach

Arun Misra has more than 33 years of expertise in the mining and metals industries, as well as in the strategic areas of quality management and breakthrough leadership. He associated with Vedanta Group for over two years and was appointed as a CEO & Whole-time Director of Hindustan Zinc in August 2020. Arun believes that one must be confident in their strengths and have the zeal to learn, adapt & improvise to be a great CEO. At Hindustan Zinc, Arun works hand in hand with his people to realize the company’s vision to be the world’s most admired sustainable natural resource organization. Arun’s aim is for HZL to remain at the forefront of adopting best-in-class technologies and set a benchmark by enhancing efficiencies and productivity along the way. He reports that Hindustan Zinc has advanced well on its journey of leveraging digitalization and is looking to embrace new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain capabilities in the future. According to him, all of this is to be achieved with the utmost focus on ESG, which ensures equitable growth for all our stakeholders.

Overcoming the Pandemic with Right Decisions and Resilient Teams

Arun explains that being at the helm of a mining giant during a time which was both unprecedented and unimagined, it was a challenge to innovate and reinvent the way Hindustan Zinc works. The COVID-19 pandemic struck just a few months into his tenure with Hindustan Zinc and the lockdown posed formidable challenges. According to him, the major challenge was to ensure employee safety and wellbeing during the peak of the pandemic while ensuring minimal impact on the operations. After the restart, it was important to get all things back on track whilst maintaining complete safety protocols. Arun reveals that in such times, making decisions that are well-informed and time-sensitive is a crucial part of being a successful leader. He is proud of all his teammates for being so resilient during such a time of testing and bouncing back stronger than ever, as Hindustan Zinc has not only achieved operational excellence but also set global benchmarks in sustainable social solutions, benefitting the business, people, and communities.

Embracing Disruption, A Must for Effective Leadership

“Industries are evolving at a greater pace. With that, it becomes necessary for us to keep in touch with ongoing changes irrespective of our position in the organization,” says Arun. He feels that in the era of big data, companies acquire massive amounts of data about events, processes, and operations, among other things. The next step in this process is to make sense of this information, make agile changes, and quick adjustments. Arun reminisces that previously analyzing the information in detail was impossible since identifying the problem required weeks or months of research, and by the time a solution was brought up, the problem on the ground had developed into a completely distinct scenario. However, the situation is better now as real-time data can be collected on nearly anything. Arun states that he is confident that the deployment of corrective actions can be done at shorter intervals with this. This requires mental processing power, which is the ability to consume and process a large amount of information to arrive at an actionable conclusion. He also points out that emotional intelligence in today’s workplace is very important and equally applicable in every industry or sector operating in the world. He adds that the ability to ask the correct questions from the team, to truly listen to them, and comprehend their concerns will enhance their genuine value. This is something that every executive should understand and culminate in communication and teamwork. According to him, the ability to communicate effectively with a diverse audience will be the differentiator between a great and a competent executive.

Encouraging Innovation with Intrinsic Sustainability

Arun says that Hindustan Zinc is a B2B company. At Hindustan Zinc, the business motive is to constantly encourage innovation that improves the intrinsic sustainability index of its products and operations. Without a formalized strategy for planning, implementing, and measuring its worth, it will continue to exist in a chaotic manner within a company, especially in the case of large and complex mining operations. He adds that the company’s approach is to continuously evaluate opportunities and risks, optimizing the former and minimalizing the latter. In the era where ESG has become the prime focus for any organization, the innovation of Hindustan Zinc is based on delivering the mine to metal value in the most sustainable, carbon-efficient, and waste-free manner possible. Arun emphasizes that Hindustan Zinc’s Sustainable Development Goals are formulated to exactly match this vision.

Bequeathing Mining Operations with AI and Automation

Mining companies around the world are progressively increasing their mix of AI and automation in day-to-day operations, remarks Arun. According to him, industrial robots have been performing physically straining and challenging operations. He reports that Hindustan Zinc is pioneering tele remote or completely autonomous equipment operations in hard rock UG mining in the country. He is also grateful for the rapid advances in machine vision, artificial intelligence, machine-to-machine communication, sensors, and actuators, more advanced robots with greater senses, dexterity, and intellect. The company is planning to operate more and more equipment via tele remote as a way forward to reduce the number of human interventions at the site and increase productivity. Arun believes that this certainly has productivity benefits, and at the same time, provides a better work environment for the people the company employs. He also clarifies that while Hindustan Zinc assessed and sized each technology’s potential economic implications separately, it did see some interesting similarities in the results. These discoveries are consistent with the characteristics of economically disruptive technology. While talking about being a leader in an institution, Arun says: “The role of a leader, I believe, has always remained the same, to see the big picture, strategize, that is, to give your company a path to march, support your team and safeguard the future from the vagaries of the business environment.”

Metal and Mining Industry to Fulfill the ‘Atmanirbhar’ Vision

Arun predicts that the Metal and Mining industry will be key in realizing the Atmanirbhar Bharat vision and India’s goal of being a US$5 trillion economy, especially with the Budget 2022, which he calls the growth-oriented and CAPEX-focused Budget. He believes that it will boost the development of the economy at a higher rate post-pandemic. As per the current trends, the demand for zinc is set to go up 6.2% annually with a steady rise in usage of galvanized steel by various sectors, especially, the railways which have been consuming about 18%. The overall infrastructure growth and defense research and development (R&D) will only increase the need for metals in manufacturing specialized high-grade equipment under the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ vision. Arun has faith in the fact that with the rise in demand for the usage of galvanized steel, the demand for zinc is likely to rise as a consequence. He states that India is on the cusp of a major metal revolution, and Hindustan Zinc is already set to contribute to this journey.

Best Captain will Anticipate Changes and Understand Technology

From Arun’s point of view, the fluidity and dynamic nature of the tech leader is one of its most prominent characteristics. He thinks that the only way for an industry executive to stay on top of their game is to anticipate change and study the sector’s in-demand talents. On behalf of Hindustan Zinc, operating with a “user-first” approach and strategic vision is an important soft skill for tech executives since it supports technology adoption discernment. The ability to consume huge amounts of information and process it rapidly is critical for a tech executive to master and determine what actions they need to take. This mental processing power is supposedly essential to keep up with the constantly changing tech industry. Arun also mentions ‘a thorough understanding of the technology’ as the crucial characteristic of a tech executive. However, he concludes by saying that in this ever-changing business, it is also imperative to have a wide understanding of all technologies and their progress.

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