Anglo American signs on ex-ARM chair Chambers

Anglo American announced the appointment of Stuart Chambers as its chairman on Wednesday.

The FTSE 100 miner said Chambers would join the board as a non-executive director and the chairman designate on 1 September, and would become chairman on 1 November.

He was succeeding Sir John Parker, who announced his intention to step down during the course of the year in February, after serving eight years as chairman.

Sir John was set to step down from the board on 31 October.

Chambers was chairman of ARM Holdings and of Rexam until 2016.

In recent years, he served as a non-executive director on the boards of Smiths Group and Tesco among others, following an executive career at Nippon Sheet Glass (formerly Pilkington), Mars Corporation and Shell, where he began his career as a chemical engineer.

“I am delighted to welcome Stuart Chambers to Anglo American as my successor as chairman,” said Sir John Parker.

“Stuart's breadth of global executive experience, in addition to chairing two FTSE 100 companies and serving on the board of several other international companies across the industrial, logistics and consumer sectors over the last 15 years, stands him in excellent stead.

“On behalf of the board, I thank Sir Philip Hampton for his leadership of the process to identify and appoint Stuart to the role and I wish Stuart and the entire board every success.”

Stuart Chambers himself said it was a “great privilege” to be appointed chairman of a company “as iconic as” Anglo American in its centenary year.

“Anglo American has emerged from the commodity price downturn more resilient and with a renewed sense of purpose, both strategically and in terms of the role it plays in society.

“I am really looking forward to working with the Board and the executive team led by Mark Cutifani to ensure that Anglo American continues to go from strength to strength.”

Mark Cutifani, chief executive of Anglo American, added that he was “looking forward” to working with Stuart as the board continued its “rebuilding” of Anglo American.

“Stuart has led and chaired major global businesses with many parallels to our organisation, in areas such as manufacturing process and technology led innovation.

“We have materially restored Anglo American's balance sheet and transformed the business performance over the last three years, and our task now is to unlock the very considerable value that we can see from our world-class asset base,” Cutifani explained.

He said Sir John Parker had chaired Anglo American through challenging times with his “trademark even hand” and focus on critical business issues.

“I have valued his guidance enormously.

“On behalf of all our employees around the world and the board, I thank Sir John for his tireless leadership over the past eight years and wish him the very best for the future.”