Rio executives bounced

Heads roll over damage to heritage sites in WA

RIO Tinto’s board has bowed to the shareholder fury, with chief executive Jean Sebastien Jacques, iron ore boss Chris Salisbury and corporate affairs chief Simone Niven all to depart the company.

Rio announced the decision after pressure to dismiss the trio over the destruction of the Juukan Gorge heritage sites in West Australia in May.

Mr Salisbury will step down from his role running Rio’s iron ore division with immediate effect and will be paid through to the end of December, as will Ms Niven, who will be given time to complete an “orderly transition”.

Rio said Mr Jacques would remain in his role until a successor was appointed.

Following ongoing criticism that Rio’s board is too Londoncentric, one of its three Australian-based directors — former Macquarie banker Simon McKeon — will be appointed as a senior independent director.

Rio chairman Simon Thompson on Friday stopped short of admitting its board had failed to judge the depth of anger over destruction of the shelters in its initial response to the internal review of the debacle, which merely stripped Mr Jacques, Mr Salisbury and Ms Niven of about $7m worth of short-term bonuses.

“If those three individuals do not have the confidence of critical stakeholders to lead the required changes then clearly we have to move on and we have to make sure we put people in those roles who will have that confidence and we can start repairing the damage that has been done to our reputation and to our relations with traditional owners,” he said. Mr Thompson, who only

weeks ago was defending his key executives as the best people to lead Rio through its crisis, said the company had listened to stakeholder concerns on the issue.

“What happened at Juukan was wrong and we are determined to ensure that the destruction of a heritage site of such exceptional archaeological and cultural significance never occurs again at a Rio Tinto operation,” he said.

The management clean-out came after the federal government’s $160bn Future Fund added its voice to the push to force Rio’s board to take stronger action.

In a rare move, representatives of the sovereign wealth fund are understood to have confronted Mr Thompson with their concerns. The direct intervention carries the weight of a substantial investment in the mining giant.

It held $366.2m worth of shares in Rio Tinto at June 30, 2019, according to its own disclosures.