We turn financial firefighting into resilience.
Most companies can already see the problem in their numbers. Under pressure, the fix becomes a patch, and patches compound. Zurak Partners works with mining, resources and asset-intensive businesses to find the real cause and fix it for good.
- Capital
- Cost
- Contracts
- Capability
Six services. Each answers a different question.
Every engagement is scoped around a commercial outcome, not a deliverable. Where a problem sits outside these six, Zurak Partners will say so and point to someone better placed.
M&A and Corporate Advisory
Deal advisory and the diligence behind it: valuation, bid strategy, due diligence and negotiation, through to decisions about what to buy, hold or sell. Answers whether the deal stacks up and how to win it on the right terms.
Learn more → CommercialCommercial Negotiations and Strategy
Supporting supplier negotiations, procurement strategy and major commercial decision making, including contract exits and final accounts. Answers how to get the best outcome from the contracts a business signs, runs and leaves.
Learn more → OperationsIndependent Business Review
An independent review of cost and operational performance that separates structural causes from symptoms. Answers where the business is leaking margin and how to recover it for good.
Learn more → OperationsCapital Discipline
A review of where the capital is going and what it is returning: project ranking, sustaining capital adequacy and investment governance. Answers whether the capital program is building value or burning it.
Learn more → LeadershipInterim CFO
Senior finance leadership on a mandate basis: stabilising the function, restoring control, and representing the business with banks, boards and auditors. Answers who holds the numbers while the business finds its next CFO.
Learn more → LeadershipFinance Team Capability Uplift
Building the in-house finance team into a genuine commercial partner through structure, skills and operating rhythm. Answers how the business gets there without depending on external support.
Learn more →No operator runs critical plant to failure. It gets maintained. A company's finances deserve the same discipline.
Reactive fixes feel cheap in the moment and cost the most over time, on the asset and on the balance sheet. The businesses that hold their margins through the cycle treat financial health the way they treat critical equipment: planned, preventive, and owned by someone senior.
Find the cause. Fix it for good.
Simple, authentic and practical: form a view early, test it against the data, and leave behind the capability to sustain it.
Get past the symptoms
Most briefs arrive as firefighting: a margin leak, a blown forecast, a contract going sideways. The work starts by isolating the cause underneath and agreeing what fixing it is worth.
Pressure-test against the data
Site-level cost data, contracts and operational reality, not benchmarks applied from a distance. If the hypothesis breaks, it breaks early and cheaply.
Make the fix permanent
A clear recommendation, the number behind it, and the controls that stop the problem returning. Written for boards, investment committees and CFOs.
Build capability so it sticks
The tools, cadence and skills transfer to the in-house team. The measure of success is that the improvement holds without a consultant in the room.
The kind of problems Zurak Partners gets called for.
Engagements are confidential, so the detail stays in the room. The shape of the work looks like this.
Commercial leadership of a major mining services contract exit: entitlement recovery, time-sensitive notice management and final account governance, run as a controlled process rather than a scramble.
Buy-side advisory on an east coast coking coal asset: valuation built from operational drivers, technical due diligence coordination and bidder landscape analysis through a competitive process.
Cost and performance diagnostics for underground base metals operations: maintenance cost deep-dives, external spend reviews and savings cases built to survive board scrutiny and site delivery.
Finance transformation across large asset-intensive organisations: capability improvement, governance and business partnering programs that strengthen financial insight and decision support for operational leaders.
35+ years of senior finance leadership, earned inside the businesses.
The principals have held senior finance and commercial roles at BHP, Wesfarmers, BUMA, Bankwest and Ernst & Young, across mining and resources, contracting, industrial operations, banking and professional advisory. They have owned the numbers, carried the budgets and answered to the boards. The advice comes from that experience, not from a framework.
Engagement types
- M&A advisory and bid support
- Commercial and technical due diligence
- Supplier negotiations and procurement strategy
- Contract exits and final accounts
- Independent business reviews: cost and performance
- Interim CFO mandates
- Capital program and investment reviews
- Finance team capability uplift
Sectors & settings
- Mining and resources: iron ore, metallurgical coal, copper, potash
- Mining services and contracting
- Industrial and asset-intensive operations
- Banking and financial services
- Professional advisory
- Owner, contractor and investor perspectives
Led by people who have sat in the chair.
Zurak Partners is principal-led. The people who do the analysis write the advice and stand behind it. Where an engagement calls for broader capability, the firm draws on a trusted network of senior independent specialists with mining, resources and industrial backgrounds.
Calvin Yong
PrincipalMore than fifteen years in mining and resources finance, including senior roles across BHP, BMA, Bankwest and CS Gas. Extensive experience in commercial strategy, major supplier negotiations, capital investment decisions and large-scale cost transformation. Known for clear, structured thinking that cuts through complexity and challenges assumptions.
- MBA, University of Queensland
- Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting and Finance), Curtin University
- CPA
- Executive programmes, Harvard
Wen Khong
PrincipalTwo decades in senior finance roles across BHP, Wesfarmers, BUMA and Ernst & Young, with time on the other side of the fence as a Production Coal Manager. Deep expertise in finance transformation, financial governance and CFO advisory, focused on building finance functions that drive operational and capital decisions.
- Chartered Accountant, CA ANZ
- Chartered Secretary, AGIA
- Bachelor of Commerce (Professional Accounting and Finance)
- Harvard Business School alumnus
Stop patching. Start fixing.
Share a little about the asset, the deal or the problem. A principal will respond within one business day to set up a call.
Email calvin@zurakpartners.com
Location Brisbane, QLD, Australia
LinkedIn Zurak Partners