Vik Bansal is an Australian business executive and the chief executive officer at the Australia’s largest vertically-integrated steel manufacturing and recycling company InfraBuild. Bansal’s willingness to tackle new or difficult territories has seen him develop a reputation for his ability to transform businesses, with the waste management company Cleanaway being awarded the Turnaround Management
Association’s “Turnaround of the Year Award” in the large company category during his time as chief executive officer. Over the course of his two decades of leadership experience, Bansal has become a champion for sustainable business models, believing in the view that a company’s stakeholders are those that drive long-term growth. Born in Karnal, Bansal was raised in the northern Indian city where he attended the Catholic private school St. The school is known for its strong emphasis on performance in both academics and physical fitness, and Bansal has said that in his time there he developed a strong understanding of team dynamics as well as an affinity for math and physics. Although Bansal’s father had found relative success as a lawyer, he himself had no interest in the subject and instead decided to pursue an undergraduate degree in engineering. Bansal attended the National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra, and in 1987 he graduated with honors from the university with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. He started his working career with Tata Group’s home appliances and HVAC company called Voltas Limited where he managed building automation and HVAC projects in commercial and industrial applications. In his three years working for the company, Bansal eventually moved into a managerial role and was able to get his first experience leading diverse teams at multiple locations. In 1991, Bansal moved to Australia after being admitted to RMIT University in Melbourne for a master’s degree in computer science. However, upon arriving he found that due to clerical differences in requirements for degrees between Australia and India he would first be required to earn a postgraduate diploma and began attending the program at Swinburne University of Technology. Bansal has described those early years in Australia as character-building, as he struggled with learning to assimilate to a new culture while also trying to find a job to support his studies in the midst of a recession. While continuing to apply for engineering position, he sold advertising space in a suburban newspaper earning $85 a week plus commission. While difficult days, in retrospect he found the role to be the quickest path to assimilate to a new society. He applied for nearly 100 positions during this time, even at one point changing his name from “Vikas” to “Vik” on the advice of a recruiter to better fit in with his adopted country. Bansal ended up thankful he didn’t immediately enter the master’s degree program for computer science, as his time at Swinburne University of Technology earning his postgraduate diploma showed him that it wasn’t a career path he was interested in following. Instead, he took a position at the French manufacturing company Alstom to work within process automation for their subsidiary Endress+Hauser, an engineering role that also involved some work in sales. He spent some time in Germany learning from his mentor – a mature, brilliant and demanding German engineer. Finding himself increasingly drawn to the business aspect of the job, in 1993 he enrolled at Deakin University to pursue a Master of Business Administration while continuing to work for Alstrom, graduating in 1996. According to Bansal, while engineering requires a good deal of technical training and certainly a fair amount of analytical skills and intelligence, it lacked the pragmatic and management of ambiguity that is imperative to running a business. For this reason, he jumped at the opportunity to become the national product manager for a new product portfolio Alstrom had recently acquired which had seen success in Japan but had not been tested in the Australian market yet. Made responsible for marketing and strategy of the product range across Australia and New Zealand, Bansal took on the considerable career risk and was able to turn the category into the most profitable product for Alstom in just three and a half years and he was promoted to be in charge of strategic marketing and product position for the entire Australian market as a result. After eight years with Alstom, a French engineering conglomerate, Bansal left the company to become divisional general manager and executive director for an Australian subsidiary of Delta Electrical Group of Delta plc, UK in Australia. He fixed the business and was promoted to Managing Director of all of Delta Electrical group in ANZ. Within a couple of months of taking over as MD of Delta Electrical group ANZ, Electrical group of Delta Plc was acquired by Eaton Ltd of US globally. Although Eaton had a significant business, management and leadership team in Australia, Bansal was asked to lead the combined group by new owners and promoted to CEO & MD of Eaton ANZ, and put in charge of integrating the business. Eaton integration in Australia was commended as one of the best executed within Eaton globally. Bansal will admit that this experience of running and integrating two businesses in Australia was his first foray into significant and complex transformation, culture integration and change management. Bansal was able to successfully shepherd his business through the change and as a result was made regional APAC head for Eaton Electrical’s $250 million business. In the role, he managed a portfolio of multiple countries and multiple product lines including comprehensive engineering services. While in this role he successfully completed his second integration – Powerware within Eaton Electrical. Bansal successfully integrated Eaton’s acquisition of Delta & Powerware across Australia and Southeast Asia in addition to managing a portfolio of subsidiaries across Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia and India which spanned 22 sales offices and manufacturing sites employing over 1,000 people. In 2007, Bansal left Eaton to take the role of divisional general manager for Steel & Tube, the largest steel distribution and metal processing service in Australia and a division of the company OneSteel. Charged with the strategic and operational leadership of the division, the company had a portfolio of 11 regional business unit P&L’s spanning the country and operated with a turnover of approximately $600 million. During his three years at the company, Bansal was a member of the multi-billion dollar OneSteel Distribution executive lead team and reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer. Steel & Tube made record earnings during his tenure. Missing the complexity of running an APAC business, Bansal was head hunted to take on the role of Group President APAC for Valmont Inc – NYSE-listed company based out of Omaha Nebraska. Valmont had just acquired a steel business of Delta Plc and hence inherited a complex set of assets within APAC along with their own. Bansal was again called upon to integrate them and run a cohesive division reporting into the Chairman and CEO of Valmont Inc. Valmont APAC was close to a $750 million division spanning almost 26 sites from India, SEA, ANZ and greater China, employing 3000 employees. After a very successful integration and delivering record growth and earnings, Bansal took on a global role as group President of its Engineered and infrastructure product segment. The company was having difficulties with this segment and Bansal was asked again to fix and grow this segment. Bansal was soon made group president/divisional chief executive officer of Valmont’s global infrastructure segment, becoming responsible for engineered infrastructure products – the largest global vertical segment of the company. During his time in the position he managed the $1.3 billion division across 21 countries, overseeing over 6000 employees and driving growth in revenue, operating margins, EBITDA and ROIC. In 2014, Bansal was promoted as chief operating officer and president of Valmont Industries, positioning him to succeed the current chairman/chief executive officer upon his retirement. He would be the third COO ever in the 80-year history of the company. He ultimately made the decision that he did not wish to settle in the United States. Seeking a new role back in his adopted home country of Australia, he seriously considered three opportunities before settling on the position of chief executive officer and managing director for the Transpacific Industries Group. Although he has admitted that the recycling, waste management and industrial services company was in the worst shape of those he considered, in meeting its employees and reviewing its assets he believed it also had the most potential. During his time at the company Bansal completely overhauled the business, first changing its name to that of its largest brand Cleanaway in order to better communicate its strategic goals. As head of the company, Bansal oversaw the work and livelihoods of over 6,000 people, operating in over 250 branches across Australia, and he worked to streamline the company’s operating model and better position it as a waste management company poised for sustainability and a circular economy. In particular, he developed Footprint 2025, a strategy to invest in technology and facilities to drive resource recovery across Australia. During his tenure at Cleanaway, market cap increased five-fold and included an acquisition and integration of a publicly-listed competitor ToxFree. ToxFree was successfully integrated and shareholders were rewarded with the business delivering all commitments made prior to equity raising for this acquisition. Shareholders were rewarded with 6 years of growing earnings, margin expansion, progressive dividends and increased ROIC. After 6 years as CEO of Cleanaway and travelling between Sydney and Melbourne every week, in June of 2021, Bansal left Cleanaway to become group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of his old company OneSteel, now trading under the name InfraBuild. He also took a role as Chairman of LGI Pty Ltd – a Brisbane based clean energy company in April 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, Bansal managed to finish a Masters in Law in Enterprise Governance from Bond University and in doing so delivered upon his father’s desire to study law. He did that to ensure he was a good and effective board director in changing world. Employing over 5,000 people across Australia, China, the United States and Poland at InfraBuild, Bansal has sought to continue his mission of creating sustainable growth and building a better future for the company's shareholders, employees, customers, and communities in which it operates. He has deployed a new strategy and delivered record earnings in 1H FY22. Bansal is committed to making InfraBuild a true ESG company with a clear eye on stakeholders primacy.
