South32 announce lead team changes

Following the broadening of her role to Chief Technical Officer earlier this year, Vanessa Torres will assume accountability for technical stewardship and governance for health, safety, environment (HSE), alongside her responsibilities for projects and innovation and technology. The site-based HSE teams will report to leadership at each operation, reflecting where the accountability sits.

Kelly O’Rourke has been appointed to the newly created role of Chief External Affairs Officer and will be accountable for Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Strategy. O’Rourke is currently South32’s Vice President Corporate Affairs.

“This aggregation will enable us to better align our environmental, social and governance efforts with the needs of our stakeholders,” Kerr said. “Through her extensive global business development and corporate affairs experience, Kelly is the perfect choice to continue to lead engagement with our key stakeholders as we reshape the portfolio and I congratulate her on the appointment.”

The scope of Chief Commercial Officer, Brendan Harris, will be expanded to include Human Resources in his new role as Chief Human Resources and Commercial Officer.

With these changes, Rowena Smith and Nicole Duncan will leave the company after their respective handover periods. Duncan will retain accountability for Legal, Business Integrity and Company Secretary until her departure and an announcement will be made about the reallocation of these responsibilities.

“The further simplification of our functional structures and consolidation of leadership responsibilities lays the foundations for our ongoing portfolio transformation,” added Kerr.

“In her role as Chief Sustainability Officer, Rowena has made a significant contribution to HSE management and delivered a step change in our risk management systems, which enables us to fully integrate these functions into our operational teams.

“Nicole has been part of our lead team from the beginning and helped to establish the company and its robust corporate governance and business ethics structures. More recently, as Chief People and Legal Officer, she has also overseen the development and implementation of our Leadership Capability Programme.

“I have worked closely with Rowena and Nicole for many years and I want to thank them both for their contributions and wish them all the best for the future.”

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/mining/22102020/south32-announce-lead-team-changes/