Asmita Mahanta has +28 years of experience in Exploration and Mining. She currently holds the position of Global Practice Lead Geophysics in BHP. Previously she has held various roles within BHP Exploration, BHP Technology and BHP’s Western Australian Iron Ore division. She started her career as a Graduate Geophysicist with BHP in 1997.

Asmita has worked in both greenfield and brownfield exploration and mining across various commodities, including base metal, diamond, and iron ore. Her expertise lies in connecting resource knowledge to business decisions and use of innovation and technology to mitigate risk, uplift productivity and unlocking resource value. Her innovation achievement includes Falcon airborne gravity gradiometer technology, which was awarded the ASEG Graham Sands Award in 2001. She also led the development and implementation of the in-situ chemical assaying tool in iron ore grade control in BHP, a step change in the industry standard.

She is passionate about Inclusion/Diversity at workplace and building capabilities for future Exploration and mining. She dreams about shifting the current paradigm of "drill to define" to "drill to verify" in exploration and resource definition using emerging technologies.