GLENCORE chairman since its 2011 UK listing, Tony Hayward, is to retire from the mining group’s board at the end of July, it was announced today.
He would be succeeded by Kalidas Madhavpeddi, a former CEO of China Molybdenum International who joined Glencore’s board in February 2020.
Hayward’s departure is the latest in an overhaul of Glencore’s most prominent business figures – a process that featured the retirement of Ivan Glasenberg at the end of June. Glasenberg had been the firm for 36 years, 18 of them as CEO.
Glencore said it was decided Hayward should retire from the board within a year of the group’s last annual general meeting following a second extension of his tenure beyond nine years on the board.
He said it had been an “honour” to serve at Glencore.
Madhavpeddi said it was “an exciting time” for Glencore as demand grew exponentially for metals used in the decarbonisation of world economies, such as copper and cobalt.
“As the world transitions to cleaner forms of energy and mobility, our portfolio of commodities will allow Glencore to play a key role in helping us achieve the goals of Paris and play a key role in the ongoing energy and mobility transition,” he said.
Liberum Capital said that Kalidas was “… well-regarded in the space and was particularly keen on M&A whilst working as CEO of China Moly from 2008 to 2018”.
Madhavpeddi had “… not had significant exposure to the London market, so am sure investors will be keen to get to know both the new CEO Gary Nagle and Kalidas over the next few months,” said Liberum’s Davis.
Nagle was unveiled as successor to Glasenberg in December and had been working as interim CEO since January. He was previously head of Glencore’s coal assets and the head of the group’s ferroalloys division in South Africa before that.
