From Skyfall to Scale: 9 years of Benchmark – CEO comment

This an internal CEO comment that we have decided to make public to give some insight into the Team Benchmark operation, especially for customerswho have been with us for many years.

We are in a unique moment in history, not just for the entire lithium ion battery and electric vehicle thematic but for Team Benchmark.

The world is in the midst of a global battery arms race … but we know that story already.

The story of Benchmark’s rise is nearly as remarkable as the speed at which the world is ramping batteries and their supply chains.

Founded in 2014, Benchmark was an idea and a passion that really only became a business between 2016 and 2017.

Benchmark was designed specifically for what our primary function still is to this day: to collect the world’s most accurate and reliable prices and supply chain data to enable the biggest decisions of our industry.

We are a business that has been built from scratch to be plugged directly into this Energy Transition: our products, our quality, our culture, our brand, and our reputation are centred on this.

We are the world’s only major commodity publisher not to retrofit or rebrand legacy activities into the Energy Transition.

The very essence of what Benchmark is, is what we say we do.

This creates an honesty, a simplicity and integrity for clients that is unmatched.

Benchmark collects first hand data by analysts that truly know what they are talking about: this is what we did in 2014 and what we still do today.

Our prices set new IOSCO regulation standards – no one in the world has passed this level of audit rigour besides Benchmark.

Our supply chain data has depth that is unrivalled … it even breaks excel spread- sheets.

Our consistency to get to these levels, maintain them and, in many cases, still have the energy to surpass them has been incredible to watch.

No one in world publishing is anywhere near our level – and these are major corporations trying with all their might to compete for many many years now.

Our data is the core to our wider intelligence and knowledge building activities.

When you combine first hand data with first hand knowledge and experience, you create powerful analysis which is showcased at its best in our consultancy division.

This is a division that drives multi billion dollar raw material contract decisions, mine and gigafactory build out and EV plans.

Within that consultancy process, where our senior analysts engage directly with battery supply chain participants on a project by project basis, the Benchmark brand is taken to new levels and our data is further embedded into the workflow of the industry.

It’s one thing being a price and data provider through subscriptions, but it’s a different ball game telling companies how to view these markets and what the best options to further their business is – a powerful position.

A third pillar, and one that elevates Benchmark from a special company to one with an X-Factor, is influence.

Our engagement with governments around the world – the highest level of government is as unprecedented as it is un- rivalled.

Being invited to sit in front of the US Senate (multiple times), the House of Commons, the Canadian House of Commons and the G7 to name a few, is a hell of an achievement.

As a client once told us in 2020 about the US Senate appearances: “Lightening doesn’t strike twice in the same place… three times and something different is going on.”

The private government meetings are even more next level.

We are on three government committees (two in the UK and one in the USA) … and more will come for us all.

The work the entire team does to take that one bit of data – plant that one small seed – and grow it into The General Sherman Tree (the world’s biggest tree, I Googled it) is an incredible achievement.

From our editorial first approach to building the engines of subscription sales, marketing and technology to make this happen – and to keep growing – is special.

This is something major corporations do, it is not something a company with 150 people and rising does.

Yet, while Benchmark’s data and knowledge is the bedrock of our industry, the engines (Subscription Sales, Marketing, Technology) are the bedrock of Benchmark.

Our community has a home only because we have built a global series of world class events (Gigafactories, World Tour, Benchmark Week) and an entry point to the Benchmark universe with Benchmark Source.

Events allow us to meet the highest profile of people in our industry, to feel like they are a part of this Benchmark movement, and to likewise give the highest profile of people a stage.

Benchmark Source has evolved into something really unique, allowing us to generate content that – like events – builds communities and grows our customer base … providing an entry point into Benchmark for stakeholders of any level.

Our investment into these divisions has turned the team headcount balance 180 degrees, from a business dominated by analysts in 2022 – understandable as a industry first company – to one that now is far more balanced with sales, marketing, technology focused team members.

It’s commonly said – and probably too much in the wider world – but this would not work without the right people and personalities to make it happen.

Companies and management teams like to say this stuff without actually living it.

But in Benchmark it is pretty clear this could not be more true.

The genuinely positive vibe of our past meetings and AGMs and the way different divisions network and enjoy each other’s com- pany is there for all to see.

Without Team Benchmark’s ability to pick the right people – and say goodbye to the ones that do not quite work – we would not be growing as quickly as we are, and worse, we would grind to a halt.

The most ordinary of your day to day actions turn increasingly bigger and big- ger cogs that keep the entire Benchmark operation moving forward.

Your actions have turned Benchmark into the world’s most important and influential publishing business in our space.

We invest where others fear to.

We are the first business in the commodity world to go from start up and scale up for more than a generation.

The Benchmark management team invests where others either fear to, or where others do not even think to and we do so on a super long term horizon.

Pointing the ship in the right direction, trusting the blueprint, not flinching when roadbumps occur, and turning up each day to simply put in a shift – even when it is a hard grind – is something we are genuinely world class at.

That must not change.

Project Skyfall has taken us to new heights, is giving us brand new challenges and has created an environment in constant flux.

Yet with all of these new challenges, it still feels like day one with so much more to achieve.

And at the same time we are fast approaching a decade of Benchmark – next year will be our “La Decima”.

It was something we joked about in 2015, yet we now stare down the barrel of ten years of Benchmark.

Suffice to say, leave it with the management team to plan something fitting for AGM 2024.

The AGM serves more than a function of just getting the team together and learning about different parts of the business.

It provides us with a moment in time to reflect on what we have all achieved both individually and, most critically, as a collective.

The AGM affords us this moment to be thankful for everyone that has made it happen.

For me this is perhaps the most important thing for the AGM and I urge you all to enjoy the moment with your team members.

Because what we have is unique and special, but the best is yet to come.

Yet we all need to stay mindful that tomorrow’s success is not today’s success, it has to be earned every day.

See you at work.

Interested in joining the team? We are welcoming new team members from around the world. Our mantra is personality first, experience second.Join Team Benchmark, visit this page, or email us at careers@benchmarkminerals.com.