Sam walsh rio tinto biography template
Our readers, with mining knowledge, will be familiar with the name Sam Walsh and Rio Tinto, but to provide a complete sketch of your background, would you please share a brief summary of your career history? During this time, we raised the quality systems and actual performance to allow exports of Australian-made Nissans to Japan. In having ostensibly completed this successfully I was transferred to the mining side of the business, in iron ore, then aluminum — running the Aluminium Product Group, back to Iron Ore to run this Product Group and then in early I was promoted to Global CEO.
I started my career in purchasing; migrated to sales and marketing; moved to manufacturing, mining, and then general management in a business operating in 40 countries. I was looking for a fresh challenge in a global company run from Australia. Rio Tinto provided that opportunity. I have an open mind as to the field of endeavor of the organizations.
Strangely, it was my numerous community engagements in a wide range of organizations — the Arts, Church, Scouting, Government, that prepared me for the CEO role, learning how to manage many diverse issues of different scale, importance, and urgency, all at the one time. Did you have a mentor at Rio Tinto, if so, how important was that person to you and your development?
In my case, I was extremely fortunate to have Paul Victor of Vmax, a Doctor of Psychology with a manufacturing background, so we understood each other well. Paul assisted me particularly as I entered new territory in restructuring, and maintaining the focus on getting the balance right between the present and future business. The Rio Tinto business, in relative terms, is the strongest of the Mining Houses.
The company is continuing to invest in further Tier One assets in key growth areas of bauxite, copper, and iron ore. Rio Tinto is very well placed going forward to generate significant cash, make meaningful shareholder returns, and continue to grow the business. A CEO, however, works through her or his team, in my case, it was 55, employees.
Having the Leadership qualities that enable you to elucidate the strategy and plan precisely, then communicate, engage, and involve the entire organization in implementing this is essential. Many teams fail in not continuing the process by providing feedback on achievement and celebrating success. If you had the ability to see 20 years into the future, what do you believe the mining industry will look like, do you see anyone breaking the dominance of a Rio Tinto, Vale, or BHP Billiton?
However, I said time and time again that I was the only person in the company that did not know what the expression meant. Someone would always try to describe it for me regarding remote operations centers or automated equipment. Controversies [ edit ]. Carbon emissions [ edit ]. Economic growth [ edit ]. Career [ edit ]. Business [ edit ].
CEO [ edit ]. Chief executive [ edit ]. Chair [ edit ]. Director [ edit ]. Fellow [ edit ]. Vice president [ edit ]. Community [ edit ]. Patron [ edit ]. President [ edit ]. Honours [ edit ]. Family [ edit ]. References [ edit ].
Sam walsh rio tinto biography template
The Age'. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 17 January ABC Online. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 17 March Rio Tinto. Retrieved 18 January Retrieved 13 November Archived from the original on 15 February Retrieved 30 March Retrieved 17 November Retrieved 8 November We had headed off on a tangent chasing growth and diluting the very strong systems that we had.
At age 64, Sam Walsh said he has no plans to retire but also observes, laughing, that if the job disappeared he would be just fine. Looking back over his career, he said, with emotion, "I think my father would be very proud of me". We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
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