THE LEADER VOLUME 21 • NUMBER 6
Leadership, risk and the courage to act
Editorial Director Paul Moore BSc( Hons), MSc paul @ im-mining. com
Editor Daniel Gleeson BA( Hons) daniel @ im-mining. com
Advertising Sales Phil Playle phil @ im-mining. com + 44( 0) 1442 870 829
Production Manager Kate Corley kate @ im-mining. com
Accounts Manager Jo Hedley Du Bois finance @ im-mining. com
Marketing Assistant Joanna English BA( Hons) jo @ im-mining. com
Circulation Assistant Jane Alter circulation @ im-mining. com
Design and Production Luke Evans luke @ lecreative. co. uk
Website www. im-mining. com
Annual Subscription Enquiries Emma Smith emma @ im-mining. com
Annual Subscription UK and Europe £ 160, 230 Rest of the world US $ 270
International Mining( ISSN No: 1747-146X) is published monthly by Team Publishing Ltd, GBR and is distributed in the USA by Asendia USA, 17B South Middlesex Avenue, Monroe NJ 08831 and additional mailing offices. Periodicals postage paid at New Brunswick NJ. POSTMASTER: send address changes to International Mining, Asendia USA, 701C Ashland Avenue, Folcroft, PA 19032
Printed by The Manson Group, St Albans, UK
© Team Publishing Ltd 2025 ISSN 1747-146X
IM uses, as preference, SI units throughout, so, for example, all tonnes are metric unless otherwise stated. All dollars are US unless otherwise stated
At a recent presentation to the CIM Toronto Branch, Mark Cutifani offered a timely and powerful reflection on leadership in mining – one that resonates strongly given the challenges facing the industry today.
His central theme was that leadership begins where management science ends. The focus of management is optimisation, risk minimisation and operating within known boundaries. Leadership is making consequential decisions when data is incomplete and outcomes uncertain. Cutifani emphasised that leaders have to gather as much guidance as possible – from experience, precedent and insight – and then have the courage to make the best decision.
The corporate objective is to grow the business while ensuring it is not put at risk. Good management plays it‘ safe’ but seldom creates transformative value. Business environments are always changing, and when‘ safe’ becomes a constraint, insightful leadership is essential.
One of the most instructive examples came from Cutifani’ s time at AngloGold Ashanti, when the company held a very large gold hedge that provided price certainty and downside protection. As time progressed, the risk balance shifted from protection to value creation. Cutifani convinced the board to unwind the hedge – a major gamble – but one that generated seven times more value than the safe path would have. Cutifani described other examples across his senior roles at Anglo American, where the same lesson was applied to exploit several more opportunities for growth and improvement.
An important, often unstated, insight is that leadership also requires opportunity, but leaders must be prepared to act decisively when there is an opportunity to create significant value. This is especially critical today when mining has been led for so long by perspectives that prioritise caution. To meet the demands of the future, there is no credible path forward that does not involve wellconsidered risk taking. Progress now requires multiple, coordinated risks, spread intelligently across several assets, technologies, partnerships and markets.
This is why building networks of solutions such as MICA matters more than perfecting a single technology. The future of mining will be built on a portfolio of innovations, collaborators and pathways to value creation. CEMI’ s MICA Network has successfully created a national mining innovation ecosystem in Canada and is helping to build stronger, more influential technology companies with greater reach into global mining supply chains. The coming demand to supply the energy transition can only be achieved by many more mines that are profitable producing metals and minerals at prices that outcompete carbon.
MICA’ s primary goal was to support the innovators the industry needs to meet its core business objectives: meet the electrification needs of the industrial complex. But this also needs mining companies to adopt innovation. Its secondary goal was to create opportunities to expand mining’ s reach into other industrial sectors, attracting innovations from other industries( autonomous vehicle software) and offering solutions to other sectors – for light-weight industrial products from mining by-products. It is not sufficient for mining to simply deliver the metal / mineral demand as before; it must do so more sustainably. Doubling the metal supply cannot mean doubling the scale of permanent toxic tailings ponds. Developing solutions to these kinds of problems has allowed CEMI to identify opportunities for mining innovations to find traction in the clean technology, climate adaptation and defence sectors.
The stakes extend far beyond mining itself. Western economies that depend on critical minerals must gain greater influence over how those materials are produced. Mining companies are designed to maximise performance on behalf of their shareholders, not to meet the needs of the global economy. That requires new processes, new intellectual property and new models of collaboration. If this does not happen, others – already controlling significant portions of global supply – will continue to define the future on their terms.
The takeaway from Cutifani’ s message is clear: leadership is not about avoiding risk; it is about taking the right risks at the right time. The last 25 years has seen most Western mining companies mired in internal‘ continuous improvement’ programs rather than investing in the strategic innovations that can transform its future – as was Cutifani’ s vision when he initiated CEMI in 2007. Cutifani also made the key point that, if continuous improvement reflects a management discipline, step-change innovation requires the leadership energy and foundation for material and positive sustainable change. For mining, and for innovation networks like MICA, the future – and especially the future success of the energy transition – depends on executives willing to act before certainty is achieved.
Douglas Morrison President and CEO of CEMI and Mining Advisor of MICA
International Mining | JUNE 2026 3