Jakob Stausholm

Jakob Stausholm became CEO of Rio Tinto in January 2021, promoted from his role as CFO in the aftermath of one of the mining industry's worst reputational crises. In May 2020, Rio Tinto blasted through the Juukan Gorge rock shelters in Western Australia — 46,000-year-old sites sacred to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples — to expand an iron ore mine. The destruction provoked global outrage, a parliamentary inquiry, and the forced departure of then-CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques and two other senior executives. Stausholm, a Danish executive who had joined Rio Tinto in 2018 as CFO after a career at Maersk and Shell, was chosen to rebuild trust with Indigenous communities, governments, and investors. He has made cultural heritage protection a central governance priority, established new engagement protocols, and emphasized the company's commitment to respecting traditional owners' rights — though critics note that rebuilding trust after such destruction takes decades, not years. Rio Tinto is the world's second-largest mining company by market capitalization (after BHP) and a dominant producer of iron ore (its Pilbara operations generate the majority of group profits), aluminum (through its integrated bauxite-alumina-aluminum chain), and copper. The company is dual-listed on the London and Australian stock exchanges and has operations across six continents. Strategically, Stausholm is positioning Rio Tinto as a "materials for the energy transition" company. He led the $6.7 billion acquisition of lithium producer Arcadium in 2024 — Rio Tinto's largest deal in over a decade — to gain exposure to battery metals. He is also developing the massive Simandou iron ore project in Guinea (one of the world's largest untapped high-grade iron ore deposits) and expanding copper production. The core tension in Stausholm's strategy is balancing the enormous cash flows from iron ore — a commodity whose long-term demand depends on China's construction-driven steel production — with the capital-intensive pivot toward copper, lithium, and other energy transition metals.