COMPANY PROFILE
TRULY UNSTOPPABLE: NATIONAL GROUP CELEBRATES ITS 25TH ANNIVERSARY
W
CUSTOMER FOCUS DEFINES ITS PROUD HISTORY, BUT THE COMPANY SAYS THE BEST IS YET TO COME. hen asked to reflect on National Group’s 25th anniversary, chief executive officer and managing director Mark Ackroyd is as interested in the future as he is in the past. He sees this milestone as the start of National Group’s next growth phase – and the new chapter in a remarkable journey. Ackroyd founded National Group in 1997. He used his life savings to start the business with a single bulldozer. He risked everything. Today, National Group owns one of Australia’s largest and most modern fleets of earthmoving equipment, used by some of the world’s biggest mining companies. National Group ranks in the top 50 privately owned companies in Queensland in term of revenue and the top 300 in Australia. A number of contract wins have seen the company
double in size in the past three years – it now has more than 220 employees nationwide and plans to add another 100 within 12 months. National Group has emerged as one of Australia’s major private companies, and Ackroyd as one of its prominent entrepreneurs. As National Group turned 25 in May, it has much to celebrate. However, Ackroyd deflects plaudits. He prefers to talk about the growth of National Group staff over the past 25 years; the teamwork, camaraderie and organisation culture; and the long-term client relationships. Most of all, he loves talking about mining. Ackroyd is especially proud of National Group’s expanding focus on corporate social responsibility. Helping the local footy club in a mining town, for example, is about the company supporting communities in which its people live.
For Ackroyd, business is simple. It starts with having good people who understand what clients want, and who will work harder, smarter and faster to deliver it. He wants people who have high integrity, are there for the long haul, and who are genuinely customer-centric. Ackroyd himself has been known to hand-deliver Christmas gifts to clients to thank them for their support, often travelling to a remote mine site from National Group’s Gold Coast headquarters. “I love visiting clients on-site,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to see their operation and listen to how things are going.” Ackroyd still gets a kick out of seeing National Group equipment used up close and personal. He understands the need to experience the mining sector, to see, hear and feel how the industry works. Ackroyd’s optimism is reflected in National Group’s “unstoppable” motto which, for him, is more
CEO AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, MARK ACKROYD.
than a marketing slogan. It’s about solving problems for clients in all conditions, National Group achieving sustainable growth in good and bad mining cycles and, perhaps most of all, it’s about the drive to achieve.
NATIONAL GROUP’S CAT 785 WATER CART AT SOLOMON MINE, WA.
AUSTRALIANMINING
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JUNE 2022
