Martinus has continued to grow at an impressive rate since its inception, but it is what is on the horizon that has kept its founder excited.
Founder and chief executive officer Treaven Martinus has always had big ideas and the position construction company Martinus finds itself in today is thanks to this desire to challenge industry conventions.
His decision to go out alone and start his own company was a successful one. In 19 years Martinus has grown into a leading rail infrastructure construction company in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Chile.
The company is now delivering major projects including Inland Rail, City Rail Link, Carmichael rail network and the Murray Basin Rail Project in Australia as well as in international markets.
Treaven said the keys to the company’s success are simple. Hire the right people for the right jobs and foster a culture that empowers them to excel.
“You have to get the right people to implement your goals and reach success as a team and then as an organisation,” he said.
Treaven said the Martinus Way – 11 pillars that centre around respect, action, integrity and leadership – have been central to the organisation’s success.
“It started with six [pillars] but then a Sunday night five years ago after we had expanded into New Zealand, I felt that we needed a refresher. At about 10 o’clock I jotted down another four to take us up to 10 but I felt we were still missing one.”
The final pillar that Treaven identified was a ‘no fools’ policy. This enshrined the company’s emphasis on preventing poor behaviour from affecting the performance and wellbeing of staff and their teams.
For Martinus these pillars are more than corporate jargon and are the core differentiators for how it works internally, with delivery partners and clients.
There’s sound business logic to the emphasis on culture, as Treaven explains: “You cannot break into the market if you are doing what everyone else is. The incumbents will continue to win the work and you are never going to be selected if you are doing the same as everyone else.”
Layer cake growth model
Martinus’ growth journey can be broken down into seven-year phases. The first seven years focused on product supply, the next seven were services and maintenance and the past five years has been major projects.
Treaven described it as a layer cake growth model, in which each new layer of the business is built on a foundation formed by the success of the preceding period of expansion. Each preceding phase forms a solid base for the company’s next stage of growth, while each new division or capability forms becomes the foundation for the next stage of growth.
“The first seven years we supplied turnouts with a unique business model. We owned the design and the intellectual property, and through that we outsourced the manufacturing and utilised our supply chain knowledge to deliver this for the rail industry,” Treaven said.
“We then moved into the services and maintenance space, beginning with very small operations and expanding onto large projects across Australia.”
The latest period of growth has been the transition into delivering major projects. This has necessitated the expansion of its in-house design and engineering capabilities to win projects such as City Rail Link.
“The milestones along the way are things that I reflect on with pride but also look at for experience when we are transitioning and adding the next layer to our cake,” Treaven said.
“I always have a lot of ideas, but it’s always about having the right people when we are transitioning into new sectors.
“I have a great team around me who can have discussions that challenge each other to come up with how we can do things differently.”
As Martinus moved into major projects, Treaven understood it was critical to do things differently. The company focused on a unique way of working with sub-contractors.
“We identified an opportunity to change the way we were tendering for projects compared to others in that space,” he said.
“In the past, contractors would tender for the work and then put the call out for subcontractors after they had won.
“We would identify our ideal subcontractors before tendering and take them along for the journey. We have a lot of the capabilities internally but by bringing them in early we can give a clear picture from the tendering process onwards.”
Treaven said that each time the company makes a move into a new space the organisation is looking to take the right team with it.
“You have to put the right people in charge of something when it is getting off the ground,” he said.
“We will start with our small teams and then try different things and then once it gains momentum, we will really invest in it.”
The next layer of the cake for Martinus will be a move into the haulage sector. It’s a transition that makes sense for a company that’s involved in moving a large volume of commodities by rail in its major projects.
“This was the logical next step and we are really excited for the work ahead,” he said. “A lot of the big mining companies are looking for efficient ways to move their products from pit to port. We are looking to better engage with our clients and the mining industry.
“For so many of these organisations, rail is not their focus so we can take that onus on ourselves and offer an end-to-end solution for these mining companies. We can design and construct their railways and then operate them to ensure they are maximising their capabilities.”
Treaven said that the focus is to start with what a client needs and develop a fit-for-purpose solution. The company will then bring its proposal to the table and establish whether that will work for the client.
“It is about ensuring it is an all-encompassing solution and not just something off the shelf,” he said.
InfraPay
Another way that Martinus seeks to expand is with the development of its InfraPay platform, intended to support companies whose core business requires below-rail infrastructure but may not have the capital to fund such projects.
“We have the access to capital to deliver rail infrastructure and own it over a long period,” Treaven said.
“It is that pit-to-port solution that we want to be. There are stranded mine assets that can be in a region that doesn’t have the capital to invest in railway infrastructure. By bringing our InfraPay model in, we can support that growth and access to nearby ports.
“It is a simple model of turning CAPEX into OPEX and getting projects off the ground. It goes hand in hand with haulage and it is exciting.”
The InfraPay model has been successful in the company’s operations in Chile, a country that has a large number of mining operations but very little access to railway infrastructure.
This platform will work alongside and drive the growth of the company’s haulage sector and Treaven expects to see it used in a number of markets in the coming years. The InfraPay model will allow Martinus to scale its work to any business regardless of the size of its rail network.
“The benefit of what we do, is we keep each stream of the business separate from each other and in their specific regions,” Treaven said.
“Our product offering is different to our construction offering and they can combine for a pit-to-port solution, but they can also operate independently.
“The teams can lean on the experience of other business streams to ensure success but the best projects are the ones in which we are completing the major project and then supplying into it.”
Leadership philosophies
Treaven said a growth mindset has been important to him and it’s what he has passed onto his team, across the business and each of its streams.
“For us, it is about creating more opportunities,” he said.
“Creating opportunities by expanding into the United States, for example, or into Chile, taking our great team and our experience into a new space.
“An example of this growth mindset was a team member recently approaching me in Brisbane as she was looking to relocate to the United States. It gave us the opportunity to get some solid experience in our overseas market.”
Treaven aimed to simplify the company’s operations throughout his time as CEO and one of these practices has been maintaining no head office.
“The main reason for this is we deliver projects and projects are not delivered from a location off site,” he said.
“I will travel around to different sites and work out of those sites, learning from the local teams. Corporate is a dirty word for us. We have our governance oversight of course, but we do not need to refer back to a head office to make our decisions.”
A cornerstone to Martinus’ success has been strengthening team members’ autonomy. Giving the team autonomy, coupled with accountability, ensures the company is operating efficiently and at the cutting edge.
“I always tell my team that no one is going to make bigger mistakes than the ones that I have made,” Treaven said.
“So don’t be afraid. A non-negotiable is safety but I encourage them to be at the cutting edge of what we can do.
“Mistakes are good, we can learn from them, grow and be better.”
Future challenges andovercoming them
When questioned about what challenges he expects to see on the horizon, Treaven chuckled and said that challenges are seen as opportunities in the organisation.
“The challenge for us as senior leaders is to make sure we don’t lose out,” he said.
“We minimise the risks, for example once we have won a project, we ensure the team members are on site passing on the Martinus DNA.”
Treaven said the team has diversified geographically for a reason – to keep its railroad experience growing but also to ensure work continues long into the future.
“Infrastructure is booming in Australia, but it will not be booming forever so we pushed ourselves to expand,” he said.
“Looking for new areas in the railway space to make sure that we do not have all of our eggs in one basket.
“That will always be a challenge for us, and a focus will be to have a good runway of work. We will do that by maintaining our four markets.””
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