Anglo American shuffles leadership as Seamus French bows out

Anglo American announced a number of senior leadership changes on Tuesday, confirming that Seamus French had decided to leave the company at the end of 2021 after 14 years with the company.

The FTSE 100 miner said he would be replaced as chief executive officer of bulk commodities by Themba Mkhwanazi, currently CEO of Kumba iron ore.

Mpumi Zikalala, currently managing director of De Beers managed operations, had in turn been appointed as CEO of Kumba.

Both appointments would take effect on 1 January, and Zikalala’s successor at De Beers would be confirmed in due course.

“We congratulate Themba Mkhwanazi and Mpumi Zikalala on their new roles,” said chief executive officer Mark Cutifani.

“Themba will shape the strategy for our global iron ore, metallurgical coal and manganese interests.

“The premium quality of our steelmaking ingredients and the partnerships we will continue to build to develop cleaner steel making technologies have never been more critical as we work to tackle climate change.”

Cutifani said Zikalala’s “extensive” operational experience at De Beers would be “instrumental”, building on Kumba's progress to drive sustained safe performance, working with its strategic business partners.

“I am also delighted that, together with Nolitha Fakude as chair of our management board in South Africa, and Natascha Viljoen as CEO of our platinum group metals business, we will have three women of such high calibre leading our extensive interests in South Africa,” Mark Cutifani added.

“We thank Seamus for his enormous contribution and unfailing commitment to Anglo American over 14 years, both as CEO of our coal businesses and in his more recent role leading our global bulk operations and strategy.

“His work to draw out considerable operational synergies and sharing of best-practice has enhanced our capabilities and been central to our performance improvements over many years.”

In conjunction with the changes, chief executive of base metals Ruben Fernandes would also take on accountability for the iron ore and the nickel operations in Brazil.

As planned, the Quellaveco copper operation in Peru would also move to the base metals portfolio once commissioned.

Anglo American said the streamlining of responsibilities would allow Fernandes to “maximise efficiencies” across all of its operations in South America, alongside his global strategic responsibilities for base metals.

At 0917 BST, shares in Anglo American were down 0.08% at 2,588p.