Our CEO, Juan Luis Kruger, talked with SusTINable Times and gave us his impressions on his recent business visit together with Minsur’s sales team to customers in North America.
What was the goal of Minsur delegation’s visit to the United States?
It was to meet with an important group of North American customers. We had the opportunity to strengthen our business relationships with them, after the complex and challenging socio-political context experienced by our country a few months ago. It is well known that the mining industry was one of the hardest hit sectors.
We shall remember that our San Rafael mining unit, in Puno, stopped operating for more than two months. We needed to reassure our strategic partners and valued customers that we are prepared to address both local and global challenges, and shared with them the actions that we have taken to strengthen our position as the most reliable source of tin.
How did Minsur deal with this situation?
Our organization had the capacity to work through all the difficulties within a very uncertain environment. Guided by our purpose we were able to overcome this difficult situation. In spite of the unprecedented political and social crisis in our country, San Rafael’s team together with the support of our Corporate team, succeeded in preserving the health and safety of all our employees and contractors, which was our first priority. They also protected our assets to ensure the continuity of our operations, which were resumed in the shortest time possible. It was remarkable that during the crisis we were able to approach and strengthen our relationship with the communities of San Rafael’s direct area of influence. This allowed us to consolidate our presence in the region and strengthen our role as a catalyst for social development. I will like to highlight the teamwork of everyone at the operations, which has resulted in a much stronger organization and culture. We were able to turn around a difficult moment into an opportunity to consolidate and strengthen our culture, our people and our commitment to the develop a world-class organization, and our commitment to our communities and stakeholders.
How did the customers feel about this?
I think that we have been able to strengthen the mutual trust and long term relationships that we have with them. We have an open-door policy, and we act with absolute transparency with all our stakeholders, thus building a high degree of credibility. Our strategic partners can be sure of our resilience to address any challenges and situations that may arise in the future. I think that other important highlight was the interest shown by our customers in our commitment to sustainability, in areas such as climate change and human rights, among others. Through our SusTINable concept and branding, we are able to create shared value for our customers, society and the planet. Sustainability is one of our pillars to address local and global challenges. For us, it is the only possible way and the best way to transcend and live our purpose: “Improving live transforming minerals into wellbeing”.