CEO proves all systems go for nuclear career

Craig Lockhart heads the country’s largest defence contractor– BAE Systems Australia – which he anticipates will grow to more than 10,000-strong in the next three to four years.

Craig Lockhart, BAE Systems Australia chief executive. Picture: James Elsby

Reflecting on more than three decades of industry experience in the surface ship, submarine and civil nuclear power sectors, Craig Lockhart, chief executive of BAE Systems Australia, is unsure whether he has been in the wrong places at the right time or the right places at the right time when it comes to leadership roles he has taken on.

Now a youthful 57, Lockhart heads the country’s largest defence contractor, featuring a 2024 turnover of $2.4bn and a workforce approaching 7000, which he anticipates will grow to more than 10,000-strong in the next three to four years.

“And over the next five years we’re expecting to grow the business to a turnover of more than $3bn and that will be a blend of organic and acquisition growth,” Lockhart says.

“We continue to compete against the big resources companies for staff, probably not on a salary level, but we offer much more exciting and long-term careers.

“We’re delivering the Hunter-class frigate program, sustaining and upgrading the Hobart-class air warfare destroyers, bidding (with BMT) for the Anzac-class frigate design support contract, sustaining the RAAF’s F-35A Joint Strike Fighter and Hawk lead-in fighter fleets, and supporting and systematically upgrading the JORN radar network.

“Together with the Australian Submarine Corporation, we’ll be building Australia’s five SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines at Osborne, and we’re already focused on putting a lot of the foundational stuff in place.

“Throw exports into the mix and it’s an exciting prospect, and one that I’m proud to lead.”

As a teenager living on Scotland’s Fife Peninsula, Lockhart’s interest in a military career was sparked in 1982 by television coverage of the Falklands War. Although he was accepted by the Royal Air Force as a potential pilot-navigator, the next trainee intake was not for eight to nine months. Aged 17, he joined the Ministry of Defence as an interim step and subsequently decided to continue with the MoD as a technician apprentice – a choice he has never regretted.

“The opportunities to advance, both academically and professionally, were second to none,” he comments.

Joining UK defence company Babcock in 1987, Lockhart was hand-picked “for the nuclear side”. After studying as a civilian at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, he then spent “a long time” at the Royal Navy’s nuclear training school at HMS Sultan studying nuclear reactor design and operation.

He was then moved to the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor facility in Derby, becoming part of an integrated team consisting of the MoD, Rolls-Royce and Babcock to design repair solutions for the naval nuclear reactors.

As a senior development engineer, Lockhart rose through the ranks in various leadership positions including a spell as managing director of civil nuclear bidding into nuclear decommissioning.

“If we see potential and we see performance and we see hard work, we will work with those people in the organisation. The opportunities in BAE Systems are second to none.”

– Craig Lockhart, BAE Systems Maritime Australia chief executive

From 2003-09 he held a number of director roles at Naval Base Clyde, starting as nuclear safety and compliance director before becoming managing director of Babcock’s operations at the Faslane nuclear submarine base in 2009. Two years later he moved to Adelaide as CEO of Babcock Australasia with a brief, successfully implemented, to grow the business.

Returning to the UK in 2017 as Babcock UK’s managing director, naval marine, he led a team of more than 6500 people across two naval dockyards, two naval bases, two shipbuilding yards and various technology and engineering centres. Two years later Lockhart moved to BAESA as managing director maritime, something he describes as akin to signing for a rival football team, with corporate focus firmly on delivery of the Hunter-class frigate program and growing the national shipbuilding enterprise in support. Appointed chief executive of BAESA in September 2024, Lockhart continues inter alia to closely monitor Hunter-class progress, which he says is on schedule for delivery in 2032 of the first of what will ultimately be six frigates.

He declines to discuss contentious cost issues but says BAESA’s figure for construction of the three contracted Batch One ships was very close to the company’s original bid estimate.

“As an apprentice I would never have thought of becoming CEO of a company like BAE Systems Australia,” Lockhart says.

“But if you work hard, study hard, stick your hands up for a job that doesn’t look as good as the ones on paper, that opportunity will come.

“You don’t have to go chasing jobs – I don’t think I’ve ever applied for a job in my life.”

Relating this philosophy to BAESA, Lockhart says there is no bias in the company “that says you have to have gone to university and you must have this qualification and that qualification”.

“We will manage that. If we see potential and we see performance and we see hard work, we will work with those people in the organisation. The opportunities in BAE Systems are second to none.”

This has been proved by Lockhart’s daughter, Eva, whom he couldn’t convince to be a nuclear engineer but is an environmental scientist very much part of BAESA’s sustainability program.

Surprisingly, his extra-curricular interest centres on cooking.

“I’m a bit of a closet chef – classic French, Mediterranean, it’s really anything. Probably the last domain I haven’t really tackled is my understanding of Asian cooking,” he says.

“I love the preparation, I love the thinking around it, and people enjoying what I’m cooking for them. In a restaurant I’m always looking for the chef’s table so I can sit and watch the kitchen.”

Earlier interests included soccer and Shotokan karate, in which he achieved fourth dan status, “but it was really a question of time, something had to give”, he explains.

“However, I like keeping myself busy, so I’m now at the gym at 5.30 every morning doing a combination of cardio, running and weights.

“It’s much more of a mental thing for me; I hate getting up at that time but once I’m there and have been through my routine I feel much better about the day ahead of me.”

And, as Lockhart discloses, shortly he expects to be doing that as an Australian citizen.