Interim Chief Financial Officer — Renewal

Twenty-four months to see the margin beneath the price

Mining margins move with commodity prices, grades and volumes, and a good year can hide a weakening operation as easily as a bad year can obscure a strong one. Over 24 months, the Interim Chief Financial Officer is to give the Board of Directors a view of structural margin: what each operation earns once temporary price and volume effects are taken out. For the first ninety days, that means agreeing with the board a structural margin baseline for every operation, built transparently enough that site leaders recognise their own numbers in it. Around month nine, margin reporting should have been tested against operating evidence from each site, and any finance commitments that blur margin should be on hold or closed. By month 24, the board should be reviewing structural margin through a reporting cycle it trusts, owned by accountable finance and operating leaders.

The authority to change how margin is reported

The CFO answers to the Board of Directors and holds executive authority. They set the thresholds for finance decisions that stay with local leaders, specify the evidence that decisions on capital spending, operating capacity and financial controls must rest on, and rule on which current programmes proceed, which pause and which close. They stop proposals that move cost or risk without naming who will carry it, decline investment whose case leaves out who will adopt it, what it hinges on or the downside, confirm who leads finance and how problems are raised, and settle disputes when directors and site leaders read the margin differently.

Changing how margin is reported is technical work, and political work too, because a new basis of comparison always produces some unwelcome readings. The CFO has to make that change without letting it become a contest between sites.

A CFO who owns decisions, not only numbers

You know mining and metals through calls you made yourself, in businesses with revenue of at least $785 million and 1,700 or more people across three or more countries, and one of those calls halted a commitment whose case did not stand up, before it became a problem. We will examine succession, digital transformation and buy-side M&A, acquisitions particularly, because acquired operations often arrive with their own margin conventions. Capital allocation is tested at level 4; at level 3 we test risk judgement, FP&A forecasting, and controls and reporting. Be ready to discuss a popular commitment you ended and the margin evidence behind that decision. You can tell a board about an unresolved gap without using uncertainty to buy time.

Four stages, board to board

In week one the Board of Directors meets you privately on video. In the third week the Regional President explores with you the operating side of margin. Week five brings you in person before executives drawn from each function, and in the seventh week you meet the full board. Five working days is the longest you should wait for our written response after any stage.