[miningmx.com] – ANGLO American made short work of replacing its CEO Cynthia Carroll, today unveiling AngloGold Ashanti’s Mark Cutifani as the incumbent. He will take up his duties at Anglo on April 3.
Carroll announced her resignation from Anglo about two-and-a-half months ago amid agreement among analysts that finding an appropriate replacement would be hard work considering the difficulties posed by the job.
“Anglo American has some of the highest quality mining operations and projects amongst its diversified peer group, bound together within a company with a deep sense of responsibility,” said Cutifani in an announcement to the JSE this morning.
He said he was “… delighted to have the opportunity to lead Anglo American at this important stage in its journey,” but added it had been a privilege to have worked at AngloGold Ashanti.
In its announcement, AngloGold Ashanti recognised the enormous job Cutifani had done at the company since he joined in 2007 and said that it had begun a global search for a replacement.
Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan (Venkat), AngloGold Ashanti’s CFO, and the group’s executive vice-president for business and technical development, Tony O’Neill, will take up the posts of interim CEOs focusing on their respective responsibilities.
It’s understood that the group will look externally and internally for Cutifani’s replacement but that Venkat and O’Neill had not put their names forward for the position.
AngloGold said its board, under chairman Tito Mboweni, had initiated a formal search for a new CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, in terms of which both internal and external candidates will be considered.
“I would like to thank Mark for five years of inspirational leadership, during which time he transformed the business,” said Mboweni in an announcement.
“Mark led a significant operations and financial turnaround with industry-leading returns, and built a leadership team with outstanding breadth and depth,” he said.
Anglo disclosed that Cutifani would be paid a basic salary of £1.2m a year and benefit from a bonus share plan in which the annual incentive payment would be 87.5% of his basic salary, payable in both shares and cash.
Said Sir John Parker, Anglo’s chairman: “Mark is a highly respected leader in the global mining industry, with values strongly aligned to those of Anglo American. We look forward to welcoming him as our CEO.’
