Ian Cockerill, CEO, Anglo Coal
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» Whither Mr Cockerill?
» Cockerill joins Anglo Coal as CEO
» The thrill of a fresh challenge lures Cockerill
» Cockerill, Munro quit Gold Fields

» JSE:ANGLO AMERICAN PLC:
20705c 0%

Cockerill's last hurrah
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Tue, 08 Apr 2008

[miningmx.com] -- IAN Cockerill wants to help Anglo American find innovative ways to extract value from the looming global energy crunch, and quashed speculation that his brand new appointment as CEO of Anglo Coal is a stepping stone higher up the company.

Cockerill surprised the market at the end of March, announcing the end of his tenure as CEO of Gold Fields after six years. There was speculation, which he quickly denied, that he would take up the reins at Anglo Platinum.

He said he was taking up an “intriguing” job offer and a fresh challenge. Nobody expected him to move to the world’s sixth-largest coal producer, which had output of nearly 96 million tonnes in 2007 from South Africa, Australia, Venezuela and Colombia.
a nice challenge to end my career up on
“I really am looking forward to a challenge in a totally new sector. That’s what I find particularly exciting,” Cockerill told Miningmx. “It’s a nice challenge to end my career up on.”

There have been some analysts and market watchers who suggested Cockerill wouldn’t be long in his position before moving higher up the company, perhaps taking up a technical director position.

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However, the 53-year-old Cockerill said he had no designs on such a move. He has said a CEO has a shelf life of six to seven years and the current position will seem him comfortably to retirement age.

“I joined Anglo Coal because I think it offers a really interesting opportunity. I have to say I’m not looking beyond that,” Cockerill said in a telephonic interview.

The first few months of his tenure will be spent understanding the assets and meeting and getting to know the people he’ll be working with.

Asked whether someone with coal experience wouldn’t have made a better fit for Anglo Coal, Cockerill said: “If they just wanted someone to run the coal business then I’m sure there are more qualified people than myself.

“But if you want someone with broad executive experience of running mining companies and developing them and adding value, that’s where I think I can bring something to the party.”

While he admitted he’s no expert in coal, he’s been doing a lot of reading around energy, which he sees as one of the four key themes driving the world over the next 20 years, along with food, water and general skills.

“The world’s not keeping pace with adding generating capacity and how we should be generating energy. Those are intriguing questions and there’s a lot of scope to navigate through all those and come up with some interesting and innovative solutions,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge of helping Anglo solve those problems and hopefully come up with some commercially sound ideas how we can benefit from this whole energy issue,” he said.

“It’s not what Anglo Coal is, but what it can become and what the current owners would like it to become, looking at clean coal and other technologies downstream.”

Cockerill replaces John Wallington, who is leaving the company to pursue other options, said Anglo spokesman Pranill Ramchander.