The Emerging Leader award recognises those aged 18-29 who have demonstrated leadership qualities, have demonstrated support and fostering of other young leaders and have demonstrated improved outcomes for the area they work in.

Baxter-Walters works for BHP in Queensland.

He said development and mentoring were key fundamentals for him and that he appreciated just how important that was for building talent pipelines for the future to alleviate the leadership skills shortage he expected would affect the industry in the future.

Dittmann is a business development coordinator for MEC Mining.

Last year he organised and co-chaired an MEC Mining event for mining engineers on transitioning from technical export to leader. Dittmann also arranged sponsorship for the UQ Mining and Metallurgy Association graduate dinner and has been looking at founding a Young Mining Professionals chapter in Brisbane.

O'Connor helped established the Social Impact Program at Tasman Rope Access.

That program grew from a challenge he put to Tasman Power, Tasman Rope Access, Tasman Mechanical and Tasman Recruiting leaders.

Fitzsimmons is at the heart of the battle for hearts and minds within the mining industry.

He leads a small team at Hume Coal tackling aggressive attacks by activists trying to stop the company's efforts to explore for coal in New South Wales' Southern Highlands.

One of his efforts has been to start a program educating school children on how coal mining can contribute to society and impact their lives.

Diakite has managed Oklo Resources projects in Mali and is well respected by other members of the team there.

• The Emerging Leader award will be presented at the Future of Mining Awards 2019 at the Sofitel Sydney, which are part of the Future of Mining Australia conference from March 25 to 26. Tickets are available.