The full picture: One KPI at a time
Mimi Steele’s focus as ARRC’s Strategy Advisor is both deceptively simple and enormously complex: make sure every person in the organisation understands how their work connects to the City of Gold Coast’s most ambitious sustainability project.
In practice that means translating bold ambitions into individual Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that every team can own and act on.
Accounts and procurement. Communications and human resources. Project and asset management.
“A vision statement alone doesn’t deliver a next-generation waste precinct,” Mimi explained.
The person processing an invoice and the engineer managing an asset both need to be pulling in the same direction.
“Contributing to something bigger than yourself – knowing it will outlast you – has always driven me,” she said. “When I looked at ARRC, its mission felt completely aligned with that.”
Joining in May 2026, Mimi brought with her a Bachelor of Government and International Relations from Griffith University and seven years inside the City of Gold Coast that gave her an unusually complete understanding of how policy and community connect.
She worked across divisional offices and eventually the Office of the Mayor, watching policy take shape at the highest levels.
She also answered the Office’s external-facing phone. That meant being the voice residents heard when they called confused or curious about decisions shaping their city.
The loop between community and outcome, between intent and lived experience, is something she carries into her work at ARRC every day.
“It’s refreshing to work somewhere that a suggestion you make can directly and quickly change how something is done,” she said. “I think joining ARRC in its infancy makes that opportunity possible. I’m big on processes and I’ve been able to shape the ones that matter most to my role.”
Joining ARRC in its infancy has made that feel especially significant.
Building an organisation’s culture and operating rhythm from the ground up rather than inheriting someone else’s is an opportunity she hasn’t taken lightly.
She sees the precinct’s long-term potential extending well beyond the Gold Coast – a regional model others will look to as they work out how to manage waste more intelligently.
