TODAY In Markets ›

A worker sweeps up coal at a South African Coal Mining Holdings pit near Ermelo, Mpumalanga province.

Glencore's canny CEO Glasenberg

Reuters | Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:08
[miningmx.com] -- Glencore chief Ivan Glasenberg embodies the shrewd, hard-hitting qualities that have thrust the secretive group to the pinnacle of the commodities world.

But he would have to shed some of his valued privacy if Glencore embarks on an IPO, which is under consideration according a report in the Financial Times on Friday.

Glasenberg, who grew up in South Africa, worked his way to the top of Glencore over a quarter century, helping build the commodities trader into one of the world's biggest private companies. He became CEO in 2002.

"The whole company's culture is aggressive," said a trader in Asia who used to work for Glencore when Glasenberg headed the group's coal operations in the region. "If a new employee was proven not smart enough, he would be out of the door the next day."

Glasenberg -- who takes an hour-long run each morning -- mixes lucrative financial rewards and competitive pressure to get the best out of workers in a flat management structure.

His competitive streak is illustrated by his sporting achievements.

He became race-walking champion of both South Africa and Israel and missed competing in the 1984 Olympics only because of a technicality relating to his Israeli nationality, according to a rare interview with the magazine of the University of Southern California's Marshall business school.

He was awarded an MBA by the school in 1983.

CULTURAL SHOCK

At Glencore, employees own the company, but the difficulty in sharing out the spoils when partners leave was one reason for considering going public -- which would allow the creation of a more flexible equity-based ownership structure -- the FT said.

Glasenberg, born in 1957 and who is married with a son and daughter, became intrigued with commodities trading when studying accountancy in South Africa, the business school magazine said.

"I observed a man sourcing candle wax from South America and selling it to Japan," he said. "I thought, 'That's unbelievable. Talking on the phone in his office, that man made money moving candle wax from one country to another.' It really interested me."

After finishing his MBA, he started working in 1984 in Glencore's coal trading operations in South Africa and later transferred to Australia, Hong Kong and Beijing before settling in the group's head offices in Switzerland.

Coming to Los Angeles from South Africa for the international MBA programme was also an eye opener, he said.

"I grew up with apartheid -- blacks and whites were treated very differently," he said in the magazine interview. "Coming to America ... was my first time outside of South Africa and I was in a programme with people from 22 different countries, which was an enormous cultural shock."