What a journey of reconciliation with Australia’s First Nations people looks like

Inclusion is at the heart of Baker Hughes’ global operations and central to its social license to operate. 

Over the past two years, whenever Baker Hughes executives visited Perth – the company’s headquarters for operations in Australia – Jeremy Campbell-Wray has taken them on a tour of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural and historical exhibits at Boola Bardip, aka The Western Australian Museum. His intention was to give context to the case for Baker Hughes to commit to a Reconciliation Action Plan with Australia’s First Peoples. 

The cultural immersion tour also included conversations with First Nations people, and in every case, he says, executives from Italy, the Middle East, the US and other countries, came away saying, “I get it.”

When, after several years of careful and inclusive preparation, the first phase of Baker Hughes’ Reconciliation Action Plan was launched in June 2025, Campbell-Wray introduced CEO Lorenzo Simonelli and Chief People and Culture Officer, Muzzamil Khider, to Aboriginal businessman Kim Collard and education specialist, Aunty Robyn Collard, prior to a panel discussion at the event. 

The two leaders spoke about their experience as Aboriginal elders, and what it was like to have relatives who were part of the Stolen Generations – the countless numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families between the 1910s and the 1970s. This was a government policy, which was aimed ostensibly at protecting the children, but also at assimilation of First Nations people into the white-Australian social fabric.

“I could see the impact that these stories had on Baker Hughes’ leaders,” says Campbell-Wray, whose own understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and identities began to take form when the US-born field engineer arrived in Australia’s Northwest Shelf town of Karratha some 20 years ago.

“I first lived remote and regional for three years, at the center of many Aboriginal communities,” he says. Based in Karratha as a wireline field engineer, at the gateway to incredibly beautiful Pilbara landscapes and a growing natural gas industry, Campbell-Wray later moved to Perth as an executive and account manager and is now Baker Hughes’ Enterprise Accounts and Growth Executive Director for Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. In both settings, he says, “I got to know different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders who are developing businesses. I continue to see the challenges they have in building those businesses, and I believe we must support them. It’s something we have to do.” 

Supporting diversity of supply chains and of the workforce are Campbell-Wray’s passions. Since May 2019, he has also embraced the role of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Leader for Baker Hughes in the region, where his embedded strategies have created ESG impact while underpinning the longevity of talent within the organization.

Recognizing First Peoples skills and land management practice

Reconciliation Australia is a not-for-profit organization formed to facilitate and build relationships, respect and trust between the Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It provides the framework for companies to use their resources, employment power and supply chain heft to help build bridges that will foster inclusion in a prosperous future for all. 

More than 3,000 organizations have committed to Reconciliation Australia’s four-phase Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) process. It starts at an initial ‘Reflect’ phase and then onto the Innovate, Stretch and Elevate phases.

Inclusion is an established pillar of Baker Hughes’ values and strategy. Simonelli’s introduction to the Baker Hughes RAP refers to the reciprocal benefit he believes can result from working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders: “Our RAP is centered around unlocking the profound collective wisdom of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, drawing from their legacy spanning over 65,000 years of caring for Country through Land Care and Land Management.” He adds that Baker Hughes recognizes, “the significance of harmonizing our practices with this rich heritage”.

Campbell-Wray emphasizes that Baker Hughes Australia is at the start of its reconciliation journey and may continue to work through the Reflect phase for a couple of years, in order to get it right. “We will be judged by the communities on our performance, and we wanted to make sure that we develop something that we could deliver on,” he says, acknowledging that many of our industry peers are further along their RAP journey. 

He also looks forward to strengthening the collaboration with customers to really make a difference in the training and employment opportunities that the company can offer Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

As an energy technology company, Baker Hughes provides its customers with highly specialized services. The path to becoming a specialized field service engineer can be long. “We’re working with several LNG operators around Australia to collaboratively develop First Nations candidates and potentially create a joint apprenticeship program.” 

But the company doesn’t want to limit the breadth of opportunities it can offer, says Campbell-Wray: “We’re looking at supporting various STEM pathways in schools, and what we’d call experience-ships.''

Preparing a ‘Welcome to Company’

Before such programs and pathways are implemented, Campbell-Wray says the RAP Reflect phase is the moment for the company to “take a hard look at ourselves”. That is, Baker Hughes managers need to ask whether they have “the policies, the procedures, everything in place that would make this an environment where a First Nations person would want to work and could thrive.” This includes taking unique cultural considerations into account. 

“The good thing about Baker Hughes, being a large multinational,” he says, “is that we're used to dealing with multicultural considerations and finding ways to ensure, for example, that the leave policy is attuned to specific needs such as ‘Sorry Business’ leave.” He says, “We're going through all that at the moment, figuring out the best ways to bring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders into the organization.” 

Even without embarking on the formal RAP process, Baker Hughes has run numerous programs over the past ten years to benefit communities. In 2022, Energy Forward covered the success of Andrew Woods . After winning the Apprentice Employment Network of Western Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Apprentice of the Year award, Woods has gone on to become a experienced turbomachinery field service technician, working on assignments around the world. 

Baker Hughes’ RAP document itself is a testament to how companies can employ and showcase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander skills and talents. The artwork that brings the document to life was commissioned from mother and daughter artists, Sammy and Ivy Wyburn – proud descendants of Djugun, Yawuru and Bardi Jawi peoples, from Broome in Western Australia. The artwork uses vibrant Baker Hughes’ colors and represents the “many hands” of people involved in Baker Hughes’ sites Australia wide and the future prospects of infrastructure amidst the development of a relationship with First Nations communities.

Since 2021, Baker Hughes has attended the annual Indigenous Emerging Business Forum in Perth, to identify new suppliers that could support the company’s business needs.

About three years ago, Campbell-Wray’s team was looking for someone to undertake the graphic design of its RAP. At the Forum, the team met staff from Impact Digi, based in Port Hedland in the Pilbara, who were chosen to carry out, not only the RAP document design, but to help with Baker Hughes’ branding. Subsequently, Campbell-Wray was thrilled when attending a supplier diversity networking event for energy services business in 2025, to see that Impact Digi had produced its own promotional brochure, which highlights the work it has done for Baker Hughes.  

How will the Baker Hughes RAP be judged?

The success of Baker Hughes’ inaugural Reflect RAP will be measured on four metrics:

Relationships – The mutually beneficial relationships it builds with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders and organizations; how it promotes reconciliation through its sphere of influence, and the expression of a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture.

Respect – How it increases the understanding, value and recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, histories, knowledge and rights through cultural learning at Baker Hughes.

Opportunities – The improvement of employment, economic and social outcomes by increasing recruitment, retention and professional development of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders; and by increasing supplier diversity to include indigenous businesses and services.

Governance – Maintaining an effective working group to drive governance of the RAP.

Campbell-Wray says he is seeing increased adoption of inclusive practices as understanding and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures become embedded throughout the company. Success can be measured on a smaller scale, for example, when employees incorporate a Acknowledgement of Country (a show of respect to the land’s traditional owners) at meetings and events without being explicitly required to; and when they rigorously explore First Nations-owned supplier options in the process of seeking services and products to support Baker Hughes’ operations.

At a recent meeting with the RAP group, he recalls the leader in charge of procurement and supplier diversity saying, “The biggest thing we’re learning is to be humble, to understand as we're going into these conversations that we need to be good partners with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organizations. We need to respect their knowledge and the skills they have developed over millennia. And we need to find ways to bring them along in our journey.’ 

It might take time, says Campbell-Wray, “but the benefits down the road are so important.”