Rio Tinto names new iron ore, Australia bosses
Jakob Stausholm’s reshuffle means three Australia-based execs in Rio’s inner circle, as it tries to recover from the Juukan Gorge debacle.
New Rio Tinto boss Jakob Stausholm has elevated a West Australian to head the company’s critical iron ore division for the first time in the modern history of the company, and re-established the role of chief executive Australia as he seeks to restore Rio’s relationships and reputation.
Mr Stausholm announced his reshuffled executive deck on Thursday, largely leaving the executive team built by predecessor Jean-Sebastien Jacques intact, but making key internal promotions to build his team for the future.
Mr Stausholm announced on Thursday that Rio will again have a “Chief Executive Australia” role for the first time since the departure of Joanne Farrell in 2019, appointing Pacific Aluminium boss Kellie Parker to the role and elevating her to Rio’s executive committee.
The new Rio boss has also created a chief operating officer role, shifting copper boss Arnaud Soirat into the position for a “fixed 18-month term”.
The company’s chief commercial officer, Simon Trott, will take over its all-important iron ore division, with acting iron ore boss Ivan Vella to move to Canada to run its aluminium operations.
The reshuffle also sees aluminium boss Alf Barrios step into Mr Trott’s former role, to be replaced by energy and minerals chief executive Bold Baatar, himself replaced by Sinead Kaufman, who has been promoted from being the operational managing director of Rio’s copper operations.
Only Rio head of strategy Peter Toth, its safety and project head Mark Davies and chief legal officer Barbara Davies retain their existing roles in Mr Stausholm’s rejigged leadership team.
The only departure from Rio is chief people officer Vera Kirikova, who will be replaced by James Martin – poached from global recruitment specialists Ego Zehnder.
Born and raised in the small wheatbelt town of Wickepin, Mr Trott becomes the first WA-born executive to run Rio’s iron ore operations since before Rio’s hostile takeover of North Limited in 2000, which turned the company into the second biggest iron ore producer in the world and turned its own operations into a Pilbara powerhouse.
Before moving to Singapore to head up Rio’s marketing arm, Mr Trott ran the company’s Dampier Salt operations, a legendary providing ground for promising young executives within Rio, and one that also counts former BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie and former Newmont boss Gary Goldberg as alumni.
Mr Toth is a dual-Australian and Hungarian national, and the promotion of Ms Parker and Ms Kaufman to Rio’s executive committee puts Australian executives in the front seat at the mining giant, with six of its 13 members now Australian nationals.
A year ago Rio’s 11 member ExCo had only four Australian members including Mr Trott, exploration and development manager Steve McIntosh, along with then iron ore boss Chris Salisbury and corporate relations chief Simone Niven – both of whom parted ways with Rio, along with Mr Jacques, in the fallout from the Juukan Gorge debacle.
The appointment of Ms Parker also comes at a tricky time for Rio, as it looks to recover from the damage by its decision to blast the 46,000 heritage sites at Juukan Gorge, which inflicted reputational damage across the globe.
Ms Parker’s will be more substantial than previous iterations. Her predecessors – Joanne Farrell and Andrew Harding – also held down other roles on the Rio executive leadership team, with Ms Farrell acting as its group executive, Health, Safety & Environment and Mr Harding running Rio’s iron ore division.
In addition to leading attempts to repair relationships in government and with traditional owners in Australia, Ms Parker will also take on parts of the role formerly held by Ms Niven as corporate affairs boss, with Rio’s global media, internal communications, and some of its global corporate affairs team to report to her Melbourne-based chief executive Australia role.
She will also likely continue to play a part in Rio’s other tough Australian issue, with the company still locked in negotiations with federal and state governments and power providers over the future of its under-threat aluminium smelters.
Ms Parker said in a statement her appointment was a reflection of Australia’s “utmost importance” to Rio, and said she accepted the company had a lot of work to do to rebuild its relationships.
“Having worked in operations from the Pilbara to far north Queensland, I know first-hand just how important strong relationships are for a company like ours to be respected and successful, and just what the consequences are when we don’t get it right. My absolute objective will be to help restore trust and regain our standing in Australian society,” she said,
But while the role has been beefed up in Mr Stausholm’s new team, it still stops far short of the structure put in place by BHP, in which its Minerals Australia boss bears ultimate responsibility for the performance of all of its Australian operations as well as its relationships within the community.
Mr Stausholm elected to retain Rio’s existing structure, with reporting lines not based on operating regions, but on commodities – iron ore, copper, aluminium and ‘minerals’, which now includes Rio’s mineral sands, borates and diamonds businesses.
The Rio boss said on Thursday the changes were aimed at helping re-establish Rio as a “trusted partner for host communities, governments and other stakeholders”.
“Now the work starts for ExCo, with a full agenda ahead of us and a determination to become a strong team. I am confident that together we can unleash Rio Tinto’s full potential,” he said.
Rio shares closed down $3.35, or 2.8 per cent at $113.70 on Thursday amid an ongoing sell-off of Australian iron ore stocks.