(Reuters) – Anglo American’s (AAL.L) Chief Executive Cynthia Carroll has quit after more than five years in the job, under pressure from investors over the miner’s lagging share price and continued dependence on troubled South Africa.
A geologist by training, New Jersey-born Carroll ruffled feathers when, fresh from the aluminum industry, she became the first non-South African, the first woman and the first outsider to take the top job at Anglo in 2007.
Brushing aside suggestions she was pushed to leave, Carroll and Chairman John Parker, her long-standing supporter, said on Friday there had been “differences of opinion” with shareholders but the decision to step down was her own, as she approached a seventh year in a “very grueling and demanding role”.
Carroll’s efforts to streamline a miner with colonial roots that became a sprawling conglomerate, her campaign to cut billions in costs and efforts to shift Anglo’s centre of gravity away from South Africa have won her support among investors. A campaign to improve ties with South Africa’s government has also garnered plaudits.
But her relationship with investors became more troubled after big-ticket acquisitions like the Minas Rio iron ore project in Brazil – an early bid to diversify Anglo’s portfolio – which became mired in cost overruns and delays.