The restrictions to travel imposed by COVID-19 and the likely change in regular travel practices assumed as a result have opened up a vacuum in leadership at mining operations that can potentially be filled locally, according to senior members of the Proudfoot natural resources team.

"The fly in-fly out model, where you're bringing senior leadership in to help support an operation, is not really going to work during COVID," Proudfoot president of global natural resources Jon Wylie said in conversation with Proudfoot natural resources (EMEAA) managing director Neil Maslen and Mining Journal head of research Chris Cann.

"Local communities have an opportunity to move some of their [people] into leadership roles. This obviously helps engagement with the local community.

"Not that senior leadership is not doing a good job, [but] local leaders have an almost automatic level of trust."

Maslen said this was not something that would necessarily happen naturally, but was rather an opportunity presented to miners to facilitate the development of a talented local leadership pipeline.