Guy Debelle departs Fortescue, joining exodus following CFO Christine Morris and CEO Fiona Hick out the door

Fortescue Future Industries director Guy Debelle explains the reasons for his departure - the third senior loss from the Forrest camp this week.

Andrew Forrest, outgoing Fortescue board member Guy Debelle, former CEO Fiona Hicks and former CFO Christine Morris.

Outgoing Fortescue Future Industries director Guy Debelle said he “learned a hell of a lot” from Andrew Forrest during his 18-month role, but said it was incompatible to keep working for the resources giant due to conflicts with a new role at a green-focused developer.

His resignation topped off a tumultuous week for the iron ore billionaire following the shock departures of Fortescue’s CEO Fiona Hick on Monday and its CFO Christine Morris on Thursday night.

Mr Debelle, a former Reserve Bank of Australia deputy governor, officially quit the board of Fortescue Future Industries on Thursday.

He has taken a board role at aspiring green energy developer, Tivan, and said he could not juggle the two roles.

“They are a bit too much in the same space and even in the same geographic space in the Northern Territory. It was better to have a clean break.”

The ex-central banker will potentially look at picking up another board or advisory role.

“I don’t have anything else lined up to go. But I probably have space for something else in my life.”

Still, he said the experience at Fortescue was a valuable learning curve.

“I learned a hell of a lot. It was very exciting and interesting,” he told The Australian. “It was a great experience. I learned a lot from Andrew.”

Asked if he had spoken to Mr Forrest over the management turmoil at Fortescue this week, Mr Debelle said: “No. I think he’s got a few other things to get on with. So no.”

He said he would “not provide commentary” on the mining mogul’s vision for green energy.

“You could ask Mark Hutchinson [FFI CEO] that directly.”

Mr Debelle has been a frequent speaker at business conferences this year spruiking the need for Australia to boost its response to the Biden administration’s $US1 trillion green energy policy, the Inflation Reduction Act.

And he said Australia needs to accelerate the transition to green energy.

“We need to get our skates on. We have a challenge in front of us, but it’s a challenge we have to meet. Or we are going to be in serious shit.”

The small-cap battery materials-focused Tivan revealed Dr Debelle’s exit on Friday from within billionaire Forrest’s camp.

Dr Debelle quit his 25-year career with the RBA in March last year to join Mr Forrest’s Fortescue Future Industries as its chief financial officer in June.

An accident in Perth in November led him to quit that role but he remained director at FFI.

In Friday’s update, Tivan put that directorship among his previous positions, outlining his continuing engagements as adviser to the Australian Retirement Trust’s investment committee and as co-chair of ASFI and as an honorary economics professor at the University of Adelaide.

Dr Debelle will invest $25,000 in Tivan by way of a private placement of shares at a price of 7.2c each.

It comes as Mr Forrest’s executive rout is continuing, with newly appointed chief financial officer Christine Morris’ exit announced after market close on Thursday.

She was only appointed to the role in early June, and started in July, after a six-month search for a replacement for long-term finance boss Ian Wells.

Ms Morris’s surprise departure comes only days after the equally sudden resignation of Fiona Hick, chief executive of Fortescue’s mining arm.

Ms Morris was appointed under Ms Hick’s leadership, and her exit is likely to have been linked to the earlier departure, sources say.

The move extends two years of acute turmoil in Fortescue’s senior leadership ranks, extending the turnover in senior executive team members to almost a dozen.

Former Fortescue CFO Christine Morris.

Former Fortescue mining chief executive Fiona Hick.

Fortescue made the announcement after the close of market on Thursday.

Executive chairman Andrew Forrest gave no indication of the imminent departure of Ms Hick at the company’s lavish 20th birthday celebrations in the Pilbara last weekend, and gave no indication of the departure of Ms Morris when speaking to journalists on Wednesday in Perth. Dr Forrest said Ms Hick stepped aside after just six months following differences of opinion over the firm’s green transition.

“What we have now is a literally galloping herd of people who want to see this company go green,” he said.

“So if you want to step outside that, you’re given a choice. You’re not fired, there’s no disagreement, you’re just given a choice: step back in, or you call it.

“All I’m saying is that Fiona was given the choice and she made her own decision … We’re not going to let a single person’s disagreement with the direction of this company affect it. You either get on the bus or get off the bus, but you make the choice. No one was pushed.”

Ms Hick joined Fortescue in February, after a year-long search for a replacement for former chief executive Elizabeth Gaines.

The finance chief of Fortescue’s green energy arm, and long- term Forrest family company executive, Felicity Gooding, left the company in July.

Fortescue finance boss Ian Wells quit in January, two months after the abrupt exit of former deputy Reserve Bank governor Guy Debelle, who was also CFO of Fortescue ­Future Industries, then the name of the iron ore major’s green projects arm.

Fortescue released its annual results on Monday, saying it had taken a $US1.03bn impairment to the value of its newly opened Iron Bridge magnetite mine, as the company booked a $US4.8bn net profit for the year.

Fortescue will pay a $1 a share dividend on the back of the result, with the payout 65 per cent of underlying $US5.5bn net profit, the midpoint of the company’s policy of paying 50 to 80 per cent of NPAT.

Fortescue’s new acting CFO Apple Paget.

Fortescue’s group manager finance and tax, Apple Paget, has been appointed Fortescue Metals’ acting CFO.

Dr Forrest on Wednesday also argued that reports of high turnover within Fortescue were “such rubbish”.

He said the number of senior executive departures since the company flagged its ambitious green transition was well short of the levels he had expected to see.

“I forecast at the C suite there will be around 12 major changes. We are nowhere near 12.

“People try and throw in rats and mice from around the place, well they’re nowhere near the C suite,” he said. “Some people have stayed 15 years, some people don’t like it when they get here, it’s completely fine and absolutely normal.”

Earlier this month, Fortescue appointed Deborah Caudle as the CFO of the company’s energy arm, where she will work alongside Fortescue Energy chief executive Mark Hutchinson. She will start with the company in September.

There has also been upheaval in Dr Forrest’s other interests, with Paul Slaughter this week quitting as the chief executive of the billionaire’s Harvest Road agriculture business.

Capping off the turmoil, a military coup this week in Gabon has put a dark cloud over Fortescue Metals’ plans to develop a new iron ore mine in the African nation.

Originally published as Guy Debelle departs Fortescue, joining exodus following CFO Christine Morris and CEO Fiona Hick out the door