Defence supplier looks towards global expansion with return of strategy expert to SA

After two decades working with global defence primes in the US, UK and Europe, Bec Humble has returned to her home state to enjoy the career and lifestyle opportunities on offer.

Bec Humble, chief of strategy and corporate affairs, Nova Systems. Picture: Russell Millard

From arts student to global leader in defence and national security strategy, Bec Humble’s career has taken her from Adelaide to the UK, the US and Europe – and now back to Adelaide.

Humble has spent most of the past two decades employed by BAE Systems, working her way up from marketing manager to head of strategy, strategy director and vice president global strategy. Today she is chief of strategy and corporate affairs at Nova Systems, an engineering services and technology company with a client list that includes the Australian Defence Force, UK Ministry of Defence, Royal Norwegian Air Force and the Republic of Singapore Air Force. The secret to her success? Never turning down a good opportunity.

“Someone recently asked me what was my five or 10-year career plan, and I had to admit I’ve never had one but, as opportunities have presented, I have given them a go,” Humble says. “I studied international politics and history at The University of Adelaide and then did an MBA at UniSA but I never had a particular role in mind. But, if presented with the opportunities to live, work and immerse myself in a different organisation working with different people and cultures, I’ve always said yes. Reflecting on it, those opportunities wouldn’t have come about unless I’d had some runs on the board and proved I could deliver.”

Those runs on the board include VP global strategy for the world’s largest military vehicles business (US$14 billion) based in Washington DC, program director for the systems component of the Tornado Military Aircraft sustainment program in the UK and head of global strategy for the $8 billion sustainment business of BAE Systems in the UK, Saudi Arabia, Australia, South Africa and Sweden. “If someone had told me that off the back of doing an MBA I would have had the opportunities I’ve had, I would have been surprised but also very excited,” she says.

Humble returned to her home state in July 2018, enticed by both South Australia’s burgeoning defence sector and its enviable lifestyle opportunities. “I’m very fortunate because South Australia is the Defence State,” she says. “With the opportunities that are being presented now, it was an opportune time to come back and bring the global experiences and know-how I have learned from our allied partner nations back to Australia. It excites me because hopefully I can give something back to the Australian defence industry through the experiences I’ve had over the past 18 years.

“I also wanted my children to grow up here and have the same lifestyle experiences and opportunities I had. We enjoyed our experiences overseas but knew we wanted to come back to South Australia.” Humble’s role at Nova Systems is to develop and implement a growth strategy for the global business, which also has operations in the UK, New Zealand and Singapore. “Nova Systems has had a successful growth journey over the 21 years since it was founded but, like a lot of smaller enterprises, they had reached that tipping point where if they wanted to continue to scale and grow they have to look at how to do things in a more concerted way,” she says. “It’s exciting because we’re building brand awareness about who we are and the contributions we make to the defence industry and capability of Australia’s defence forces.”

Nova Systems CEO Jim McDowell. Picture: Mike Burton

And there’s plenty of room to grow: while the US and UK defence industrial landscapes provide for a range of suppliers, from SMEs to larger companies to multinationals, things are less evenly balanced Down Under. “Australia has large, foreign-owned multinational primes at one end of the spectrum who have the majority of the defence work, and at the other end is a plethora of Australian-owned SMEs but there’s not much in the middle tier,” Humble says.

And it’s this middle tier which Nova Systems occupies. “We used to be that small enterprise but have grown to about 1150 people and are growing into that middle space,” Humble says. “That’s the trajectory you should want for any small enterprise with smart technology because it’s going to produce options for the defence customer and for the next generation, and it will contribute to the economy and keep the smarts here.”

And, with a national shortage of skilled workers across the defence sector, there’s never been a higher demand for our homegrown talent to remain in the state. “There is a range of job opportunities, in manufacturing and trades but also in technology, particularly space, cyber and defence,” Humble, who is a member of The University of Adelaide Defence, Space and Cyber industry board, says. “In South Australia we have a lot of defence work in the maritime space with the Future frigates and submarines, and also in the Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) and Electronic Warfare. And it’s growing.”

Having been away from home for almost two decades, what changes has Humble observed in her home state upon returning? “I think we’ve grown up and worked out we can punch above our weight,” she says. “And we’ve got really smart people doing really smart things. I would hope my children don’t feel they have to go offshore to get the hi-tech jobs if they choose to stay in Australia, and I think that will be the case. I think we’re owning it more and more and are pretty proud of it, too.”