New role, same team: An interview with Mark Worsfold

In this exclusive interview, chief editor Nicholas Dynon talks with Mark Worsfold MNZM about his RNZN career highlights, the Maritime Enterprise Sustainment Team, and the priorities for his new role.

CAPT Mark Worsfold MNZM RNZN (Ret) is Program Director – Strategic Maritime Partnerships at Babcock. Mark Worsfold has joined Babcock Australasia as Program Director – Strategic Maritime Partnerships last week after 35 years’ service with the Royal New Zealand Navy, his most recent role as Logistics Commander (Maritime).

Babcock provides asset management services including engineering, project management, production and operational support to the entire RNZN fleet, from the frigates through to small craft. In his new role with Babcock, Mark will be responsible for the safe delivery of New Zealand’s Maritime Fleet Sustainment Services (MFSS) program.

“We are thrilled to welcome Mark to the Babcock team after working closely with him over many years through Babcock’s partnership with the RNZN,” said David Ruff, CEO Babcock Australasia. “His detailed knowledge of the New Zealand sustainment enterprise will enhance operational effectiveness and leadership of the team.

“Mark will play a fundamental role in maintaining Babcock’s position as the premier warship sustainer in the region. He will leverage Babcock regional and global capability to bring best practice and value to the New Zealand program,” he said.

Mark will also continue leading the Maritime Enterprise Sustainment Team (MEST) – the collaborative partnership that supports the RNZN Fleet. The partnership has been awarded two international five-star best practice awards – the first in 2021 for the way it navigated through the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the second in 2022 for collaborative negotiations.

Interviewed in the September 2022 issue of Navy Today, Worsfold, who hails from Auckland and joined the RNZN on 27 January 1987, noted that his best deployment was to the Persian Gulf on Operation Enduring Freedom (2004). The first ship he was posted to was HMNZS Southland.

He was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2016 for services to the NZDF.

ND: You forged a strong relationship with Babcock in your role as Logistics Commander (Maritime). What’s it like to now be on the supplier side of the partnership?

MW: The transition’s gone surprisingly well. I guess that’s down to the fact that the partnership’s always been one team: a common leadership team, a common purpose, and a common outputs focus on making sure the navy has the ships it needs when it needs them. It’s a different side of the contract, a different side of the partnership, but still the same team with the same purpose and the outcomes. As transitions go, it’s probably been the simplest.

I was talking to someone in the Navy last week and they said I had transitioned reasonably quickly, but really I didn’t have much to transition. I’ve had to take the uniform off and I now have to figure out what to wear and plan my day a bit more carefully, but the overall objective, purpose, and reason to come to work hasn’t changed.

ND: The Maritime Enterprise Sustainment Team (MEST) is an award winning partnership. What have been the ingredients for its success, and what can Defence and Industry organisations learn from its success?

MW: Many ingredients have come together. Initially people thought that it was just a simple case of the right personalities, but it’s way beyond personalities. In a lot of partnerships and contracts one party in the partnership is regarded as the customer, but in the MEST’s case the common customer is the Navy. Myself and the now logistics commander are partners and our customer is the Navy. And as long as all of our teams understand that there’s no ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the MEST; we can bring our purpose together and people understand that we’re here to do things for the Navy.

So it doesn’t matter what’s on your lapel or your chest, or whether it’s Navy or Defence or Babcock, when you’re part of the MEST you’re part of the team that actually looks after the Navy, and a lot of people resonate with that. When one of our ships sails past, for example, we see our people lining the windows to have a look at it and you can hear them say “I’m going to go home tonight and say that I was a part of that.” It’s really cool to see that.

The other thing that really works here is that the team works together because they sit together, they have cups of tea together, and they have meetings together. All of our documents and processes are cosigned. If it’s a high level document, myself and the logistics commander (or other members of the leadership) will sign it – there’s always both sides of the partnership signing the document. In every message we send out to tell the workforce what’s going on there’s the names of both of us at the bottom of the message.

Previous iterations of this contract have been very much decider-provider transaction based. Nowadays, we articulate what we’d like to achieve and how can we best do that, and we build a package to deliver that, and then we measure it against resourcing and time, and then adjust it together. There are no surprises.

It’s also important to note that the MEST isn’t just us, it’s part of what I call the wider village. There are some 600 other companies in New Zealand that contribute to the sustainment of the ships. We’re working in different ways

of formalising the village concept through the NZDIA, through our partners who have premises on the base, and through all the other people who help us look after the ships. The village concept come because it takes a village to sustain a ship and everyone needs to know where they are in the village.

ND: You start your new role in the enviable position of already having a deep understanding of the landscape. Where are the areas of new learning for you?

MW: Even if you know what you’re doing, every day is a learning opportunity. Every day you should learn something new.

I did 35 years in the Navy, around a quarter of which was in Auckland, a quarter in Wellington, a quarter overseas, and a quarter at sea. I lived in nine cities, did attachments to three other navies, and lived in four countries. My entire career has been about learning something new and adapting to processes, so I’m accustomed to reading myself into a new role.

One of the differences here is that when I was in the Navy, home base was in Devonport and headquarters was in Wellington. I’m now part of an organisation with premises here in Auckland, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth and that’s just part of the Australian region within what is a global company. So I’m learning to understand the layers and the levers and the golden thread of business, where I can find help and where I can get support. Thankfully. all the help and support has been leant in to me and I haven’t had to go too far to find it.

We look after the Navy fleet here but across the region we’re looking after another 37 ships in Australia, so I’m not alone. But the learning is around finding where all those other people are and what they’re doing, and then around how we can bring their learning into here and how we can share our really good process within the region as well. It’s going to be a fascinating journey and I’m really looking forward to it.

ND: What are your priorities as Program Director – Strategic Maritime Partnerships?

MW: My absolute priority is the safe delivery of our work. Keeping our people safe while delivering what’s required of them is a bit of a personal mantra. You’ve got to “make safe, start safe, and keep safe”. One of the Babcock mottos is “home safe every day” and that’s something we need to make sure of. We work in a complex environment in an industrial zone on ships that move, with heavy machinery and large bits of kits. An absolute priority is to keep people safe while we do that.

The second priority is to support the Navy achieve what they need to do. We are here to help the Navy be the best navy it can be. And as long as we can keep this partnership in the collegiate fashion that it is in at

Mark Worsfold receiving an MNZM for services to the New Zealand Defence Force. the moment – while understanding that what we’re trying to keep safe is paramount – we will succeed in this.

ND: You’ve moved on from the Navy after a 35 year career. What are the key highlights?

MW: The flippant answer is that any day at sea was a blessing! An absolute highlight is all the times I spent at sea.

I spent time as a naval attaché in Washington DC with my family and that was a really good learning experience. I did an attachment with the Australian Navy and attachments with the Royal Navy. All of these experiences helped to round me.

But I’m a bit of a people person. A lot of people think that my best job ever was as Logistics Commander (Maritime), but if I had to pick one job it would have to be when I was running HR for the Navy.

The Navy and Babcock are people businesses. If you don’t understand people and you don’t want to engage with people then you’re in the wrong business. Sailors are at the heart of the Navy, so leading that people function was a genuine honour.

But every job I’m in is the best job… and there are too many highlights. I wouldn’t have stayed for 35 years if I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing.

ND: Which skills and experiences do you see as the most portable into the private sector?

MW: My last three jobs as a Captain in the Navy was running engineering, running strategy, and running the HR/people function. Those are key skills that would be relevant anywhere. But I learned along the way that no matter what job you’re in, as long as you know what you’re trying to achieve, you know what resources you actually have, and you understand the barriers to success, then once you’ve read into that role you can actually run it. I’m taking this philosophy into my new role.

My transition was relatively easy because I understood what was important to me. I like people, I like engineering, and I like the Navy. Coming to work in an organisation that is basically the largest maritime engineering entity in the country, and part of a global company that understand people, resonated with me and aligned with my principles. What gets me up each morning is making sure that my principles aren’t challenged and that I’m achieving something.

Babcock offers that, and I’m sure that everyone who wants to transition will find exactly the same thing if they understand what it is: don’t leap to the first thing but leap to the thing that’s important to you. I wish anyone going through that thought process good luck, and to those who have transitioned I hope that they’ve got what they wanted and that they continue to enjoy what they do.

CAPT Mark Worsfold MNZM RNZN (Ret) is Program Director – Strategic Maritime Partnerships at Babcock.