To everyone’s surprise, the multinational Rio Tinto has announced that its CEO of the Aluminum division, Ivan Vella, will leave his position in the coming months.
The news was announced Monday afternoon by a press release from Rio Tinto, from London. It came hours after the announcement of a $1.4 billion investment in a new AP60 smelter in Saguenay, northeastern Quebec. Such investment had not been seen in the West for a decade.
“Ivan Vella has accepted a new position outside of Rio Tinto and will leave in December 2023. He will continue to lead the Aluminum division while a rigorous process of identifying his successor is undertaken. He has left the [Rio Tinto] Group Executive Committee with immediate effect. »
Ivan Vella will head the mining company IGO, from Australia, which extracts cobalt, nickel and lithium, in particular.
Reached by La Presse, Rio Tinto spokesperson for the Americas, Simon Letendre, says his departure is absolutely not related to investment or his relations with Rio Tinto management or those with the government. of Quebec.
“On the contrary, he was very happy with this announcement. The timing is weird, but it’s really for family reasons,” Letendre said.
Ivan Vella had been the head of Rio Tinto Aluminum in Montreal for two years. His departure would be linked to problems of adaptation of his family in Montreal, according to our information.
At the end of the afternoon on Monday, Ivan Vella sent a message to the employees of Rio Tinto Aluminum, who are in Quebec in a very large proportion. “This is a decision that has been extremely difficult to make and is driven by the need to put my family first, who have supported me unconditionally from the beginning,” Mr. Vella wrote to them.
“My family needs my energy and my presence at home. As much as I want to continue to grow as a leader and shape the future of the mining industry, I want to be a good husband and a good father. For this reason, my family and I will be returning to Western Australia later this year for a new chapter and a new pace of life,” his post read.
