Page 188 - Jan 2013

188 | Business World Magazine | January 2013
day in the mining industry. What’s unique
about it, I think, is that it will last a long time.
Sometimes people need to stop and take a
breath and spent time navel gazing and think
about where they’re going or where they’d
like to go.”
GROWING WITHIN THE
INDUSTRY, GROWING
WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION
Devex has about 350 employees, and Bell
says they are growing every week. “We’re
pretty proud that we’ve come from the hum-
ble beginnings of three or four employees to
where we are now, 14 years later. We have a
great vision about where we think we’re go-
ing to end up and we certainly believe we’re
in reach of being a world market leader for
what we do and specialize in.”
Taking care of their employees is ex-
tremely important for Devex, and it is a top-
ic Bell has a lot to say about. “Organizational
development is a real key for any organiza-
tion,” he begins. “For us, I summarize it like
this: we still believe we’re a young company.
We have a lot of young people in our organi-
zation who have come from university. We
have a great relationship with some of the
universities in Brazil in particular.” Bell says
that while they have older employees too, the
median age for a Devex worker is actually in
the late 20s. “We look for people we believe
can help our organization grow, but who can
also grow within the organization. It’s about
developing a culture, a place where people
can express themselves and a place where
people can make a contribution and not just
be a person sitting in an office or a chair. We
tell our people that we don’t profess to know
everything, and that someone’s going to
come up with a good idea at some point and
we must, as an organization, sit and listen.”
Bell says their people, while young, still pro-
vide a lot of expertise, and the fact that they
are growing alongside the industry is a plus.
For Bell, it is important to make everyone
feel like they are there to add value. “If we
have a team meeting, I’ll often say ‘Whatev-
er we do here in our business, let’s make sure
we’re adding value to our company and in
turn we’re adding value to our customers.’”
Devex is not only conscious about lis-
tening to their employees – they make sure
to listen to the industry as well. “My view of
the world is you can have the best technol-
ogy team sitting in a back office, rewriting