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Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm will step down this year, and the search for a successor is under way, the FTSE 100 mining group said on Thursday.
Rio did not give a reason for the unexpected exit of Stausholm, who has led the £80bn miner since 2021.
Under Stausholm, a Dane who previously worked at Shell, Rio has made a big push into lithium production as a new growth leg for the company, including the $6.7bn acquisition of Arcadium Lithium last year.
It has also invested heavily in expanding its iron ore portfolio, both in Africa and Australia, and took control of its Mongolian copper operations by buying out its Canadian partners for $3.3bn in 2022.
Stausholm was tasked with restoring the company’s image after a huge shareholder outcry when the company destroyed Juukan Gorge, a sacred Aboriginal site, in 2020. He was promoted to the role at Rio, where he had been finance chief for two years, and pushed the company to deepen its ties to indigenous communities in Australia, to address claims of sexual abuse and harassment at its mines and also invested heavily in renewable energy projects to decarbonise its mining operations.
The company’s chair, Dominic Barton, said on Thursday that Stausholm had set a “compelling growth strategy”. Rio said a “rigorous selection process” was under way to identify Stausholm’s replacement, adding that he would continue in his role while a successor was sought.
In a staff email seen by the Financial Times, Stausholm said his successor would be announced before the company’s third-quarter production results in the middle of October.
One shareholder, with a small holding in the company, said Stausholm’s departure “seemed a bit sudden” given the company had only announced a near $1bn investment in a Chilean lithium asset two days earlier, and that it was a “surprise”.
Internal candidates for the role include Simon Trott, head of the company’s iron ore operations who has spent two decades with the company, and Bold Baatar, its chief commercial officer, who joined the business in 2013, according to people close to the company.
Stausholm’s exit comes as miners face pressure from investors to create more value from their sprawling global operations. Rio held early-stage talks last year with Glencore about a potential tie-up that would have vastly increased the size of the business.
The UK-headquartered company has also come under pressure from activist investors to move its primary listing to Australia. At the recent annual general meeting, shareholders rejected a proposal to study the unification more closely, with Stausholm opposed to the move.
