14 September 2026

Backing yourself: Dayna’s journey from school leaver to Lead HSE Systems

When Dayna Maloney visited South Walker Creek Mine as a child, she had no idea it would mark the start of a future career in mining.

Growing up in Moranbah, with her dad working as an underground fitter for more than 20 years, mining was always part of life. But when Dayna reached the end of school, she still wasn’t sure what she wanted to do.

“I never knew what I wanted to do when I finished school. The university path wasn’t something I was keen to do straight away because I didn’t have that direction,” she said.

An opportunity towards the end of Year 12 gave her another option. Dayna secured a 12-month Certificate III in Business traineeship with BHP Mitsui Coal, rotating through three operations and gaining experience in site-based training and systems.

“I literally started a few weeks after I finished Year 12. Walking onto a mine site as a trainee at seventeen was very scary.”

At the end of the traineeship, Dayna secured a permanent role and spent the next five years working across site training and systems. That experience eventually brought her to Whitehaven and a move from Queensland to Gunnedah, New South Wales.

Almost four years later, she says leaving family and everything familiar wasn’t always easy, but she has never regretted taking the chance.

“The move has benefitted me greatly. As hard as it is sometimes living away from family and everything you’ve known, I’ve made some really good friends and realised you have to embrace it.”

Part of that transition was finding her place in the local community.

“I think it starts with you. If you find your way into things that interest you, whether that’s sport, gyms or other interests you’ll naturally find where you fit into the community,” she said.

Dayna has recently been promoted to Lead HSE Systems in Whitehaven’s Group HSE team, supporting operations across the business. Her role regularly takes her to Whitehaven’s New South Wales and Queensland operations and she has contributed to several major projects.

Among them is Project Onion, a finalist at NSW Mining’s 2025 HSEC Awards. The HSE Systems initiative focused on making better use of data captured in Whitehaven’s HSE platforms to give teams better insights for decision-making. The team is now working on the next phase of the project and looking at what more can be learnt from the data available.

Dayna credits the team’s approach to planning and problem-solving as an important part of its success.

“There’s a lot of methodical thinking that goes into our projects,” she said. “Planning is something our team does well. That’s a testament to our leadership with Kris and Misha.”

Dayna says Group Manager Systems, Performance and Data Analytics HSE Misha Fazen has also been an important example of where a career in the industry can lead.

“For me personally, it’s such a good example to have a female leader like Misha. As a young woman in such a male-dominated industry, it’s powerful to see female leadership represented within the business and go, ‘Well, you can do it. It is possible.’”

Earlier this year, Dayna was encouraged to step outside her comfort zone and enter NSW Mining’s 2026 HSEC The Pitch competition for professionals under 30. Her five-minute pitch focused on her experience helping lead organisational change through Whitehaven’s DocHaven project, where she played a key role in driving the initiative across the business.

While the prospect of public speaking was intimidating, Dayna decided the opportunity was too good to pass up.

“The opportunity in itself to stand up in a room full of industry leaders and peers and have that platform to talk to them about something that I’ve been involved with was a really great opportunity and one that would have been silly to pass up.”

She went on to win the competition.

Dayna has also continued to build her skills, completing a Diploma in Project Management through TAFE NSW last year and considering further study in the future. But she is proud that her career started with a traineeship rather than a university degree.

“I am really proud of where I started and where I am and what I’ve done to get there,” she said. “I also think about what the next 20 years look like and if mining will always be where I stay. I want to make sure that I’ve set myself up well for those other possibilities, because who knows what could happen.”

Having started her career through a traineeship, Dayna believes there should be more pathways into mining for young people who don’t see university or a trade as the right fit.

“There is a lot of emphasis now on women in trades, which, if that’s what you want to do as a female, good on you, go and do it. But I was never going to be a tradie,” she said. “To have that pathway without needing to do a university degree or needing to go into a trade role was a really great opportunity for me.

“For anyone considering a career in mining, I’d tell them to understand where your opportunities are and back yourself.”

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