10 Most Powerful Mining COOs Running the Industry in 2026

The person who decides whether a mine runs safely, efficiently, and profitably rarely appears in earnings calls or investor decks. That job belongs to the chief operating officer, and in 2026 the people doing it are managing some of the most complex industrial systems on earth.

Mining Digital has ranked the ten most influential operations executives in global mining by the market capitalisation of their companies, a cohort collectively responsible for iron ore, copper, gold, nickel, cobalt, and the full basket of critical minerals powering the energy transition. EY now ranks operational complexity above geopolitics and sustainability as the sector’s top risk for 2026, meaning these executives are working in the most demanding environment the industry has faced in a generation.

This piece gives you a clear picture of who holds the operational levers at the world’s largest miners, what each executive’s background tells you about their employer’s strategic priorities, and how the COO role itself is changing as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation move from pilot to production scale.

How the COO role became the most consequential job in mining

The pressure on mining operations is compressing from several directions at once, and it explains why this particular leadership role has climbed the corporate hierarchy in strategic weight.

For the first time, EY’s “Top 10 Business Risks and Opportunities in Mining and Metals 2026” places operational complexity at the very top of the sector’s risk register.

The forces compressing margins from multiple directions, deeper orebodies, declining grades, and accelerating ESG obligations, are explored in detail through the lens of operational complexity in mining, which EY’s 2026 risk register now treats as a more immediate threat than geopolitical disruption.

EY 2026 risk ranking: Operational complexity now sits above geopolitics and sustainability as the number one business risk facing mining and metals companies.

The physical drivers behind that ranking are unglamorous but relentless. Deeper orebodies, declining ore grades, and ageing assets are pushing up operational risk while squeezing productivity and reliability. Decarbonisation and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) compliance have not sat neatly alongside these challenges; they have been folded directly into the operational mandate the COO must carry.

KPMG’s “Australian Mining Risk Forecast 2026” reinforces the shift, flagging operational failures, production target delivery, and cost management as the primary challenges facing operations leaders this year.

The remit has widened accordingly. A modern COO manages technology adoption, workforce succession, and regulatory navigation on top of the traditional cost and production levers. The workforce piece is acute: more than half the mining workforce in the United States and Canada is expected to retire within a decade, a talent drain the industry has taken to calling the “silver tsunami”.

Deloitte’s “Tracking the Trends 2026” adds a warning that reframes the technology challenge. Layering AI onto outdated workflows amplifies inefficiency rather than removing it, which puts the burden on COOs to redesign operating systems so that Agentic AI can support real-time decision-making. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) identifies four operational levers where AI value is unlocked:

• Planning and scheduling
• Workforce capability
• Maintenance execution using generative AI
• Data and advanced analytics

The concentration of operational risk at the top of the industry’s register tells you these executives carry more strategic weight than their titles suggest to outside observers. For investors, that means operational leadership quality has become a material variable in company-level risk assessment, not just a functional footnote.

The ten most powerful mining COOs in 2026

The ranking below follows a single, transparent methodology: market capitalisation of each executive’s company as of mid-September 2026. That ordering rewards the miners with the largest and most complex portfolios, and the profiles reward reading in sequence. A pattern emerges, namely that the companies with the most sprawling multi-commodity, multi-jurisdiction operations have consistently promoted leaders whose own careers span the same breadth.

1. Edgar Basto, BHP

• Role: Chief Operating Officer, on the Executive Leadership Team since October 2022
• Company and commodities: BHP, focused on iron ore, copper, and metallurgical coal, headquartered in Melbourne
• Market capitalisation: US$215.44bn
• Background: Technical, operational, safety, and sustainability roles across Australia, Colombia, Chile, and Peru; previously President of Minerals Australia
• 2026 note: His stated priorities centre on employee wellbeing, operational excellence, and long-term social value, which is where BHP is anchoring its operating narrative

Basto’s multi-country track record maps onto BHP’s own geographic spread, and that alignment is deliberate at a company managing the widest commodity portfolio on this list.

2. Mark Davies, Rio Tinto

• Role: Chief Safety and Technical Officer, not a COO
• Company and commodities: Rio Tinto, extracting copper, aluminium, iron ore, and lithium, dual-headquartered in London and Melbourne
• Market capitalisation: US$158.17bn
• Background: Joined in 1995 as a Senior Mechanical Engineer, progressing through Iron and Titanium, Group Risk, and Global Procurement
• 2026 note: Holds group-wide accountability for safety, technical standards, exploration, and major capital projects

Rio Tinto is the structural exception here. It does not run a dedicated COO; operational leadership is distributed across product-group Chief Executives. Davies is the closest equivalent, which tells you the company treats safety and technical standards as a centralised function rather than folding them under a single operations chief.

3. Mark Rodgers, Newmont

• Role: Executive Vice President and COO since 2020
• Company and commodities: Newmont, focused on gold, copper, zinc, lead, and silver, headquartered in Denver
• Market capitalisation: US$130.85bn
• Background: Over 30 years in resources, with prior leadership roles at BHP and Rio Tinto
• 2026 note: Regional scope spans Africa, Asia Pacific, PNG, Latin America, and the Caribbean, widened by the Newcrest acquisition

Rodgers’s remit expanded sharply after Newmont absorbed Newcrest, and his cross-company pedigree signals a company leaning on globally seasoned operators to integrate its enlarged asset base.

4. Cory Stevens, Freeport-McMoRan

• Role: Chief Operating Officer, Americas
• Company and commodities: Freeport-McMoRan, focused on copper, gold, and molybdenum, headquartered in Phoenix
• Market capitalisation: approximately US$104.45bn
• Background: Entire career at Freeport since 1998, now overseeing group-wide engineering, construction, and technical services
• 2026 note: The stock traded near record levels following a Q2 2026 earnings beat tied to strong copper demand

Stevens is the insider’s insider, a single-company career that reflects Freeport’s preference for deep institutional knowledge over external hires at the operational top.

5. Natasha Vaz, Agnico Eagle Mines

• Role: Executive Vice President and COO
• Company and commodities: Agnico Eagle Mines, a Toronto-headquartered gold producer
• Market capitalisation: approximately US$101.71bn
• Background: Regional responsibility across Ontario, Australia, and Mexico; previously COO at Kirkland Lake Gold
• 2026 note: Her focus reflects Agnico Eagle’s concentrated, gold-centric operational mandate

Vaz brings a targeted gold-operations background to a company with a similarly focused portfolio, a tighter match than the multi-commodity generalists elsewhere on this list.

6. Xavier Wagner, Glencore

• Role: Chief Operating Officer since January 2024
• Company and commodities: Glencore, spanning copper, cobalt, zinc, nickel, and ferroalloys
• Market capitalisation: US$89.88bn, up 44.5% year-on-year
• Background: Developed his expertise in coal and non-ferrous operations at BHP before joining Glencore
• 2026 note: Leads Glencore’s full range of mining and industrial operations across a diverse commodity book

That 44.5% year-on-year valuation gain shows how operational performance and commodity-cycle positioning feed directly into market value, and Wagner sits at the operational centre of it.

7. Sebastiaan Bock, Barrick Gold

• Role: CEO, Rest of World, elevated in August 2026 from COO Africa and Middle East
• Company and commodities: Barrick Gold, focused on gold and copper
• Market capitalisation: approximately US$73.66bn
• Background: Joined Barrick in January 2019 as SVP and CFO for Africa and the Middle East, then COO for that region
• 2026 note: His recent elevation reflects a steady internal progression rather than an external appointment

Bock’s climb from regional CFO to regional CEO in seven years tells you Barrick promotes proven operators from within, particularly those who have navigated its complex African operations.

8. Carlos Medeiros, Vale

• Role: Executive Vice President of Operations
• Company and commodities: Vale, extracting iron ore, nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum group metals
• Market capitalisation: approximately US$68.27bn
• Background: International executive tenures at Pilkington, NSG, SunEdison, Rexam, and Ball Corporation
• 2026 note: Oversees mining, pellet production, and logistics; valuation supported by Q2 2026 earnings and dividend announcements

Medeiros stands apart from the typical mining career path. His cross-industry background in glass, solar, and packaging signals Vale’s appetite for transformation-focused leadership rather than lifelong mining specialists.

9. Ruben Fernandes, Anglo American

• Role: Chief Operating Officer
• Company and commodities: Anglo American, focused on copper, zinc, and lead, headquartered in London
• Market capitalisation: approximately US$56.78bn
• Background: Progressed through regional director for the Americas, CEO of Base Metals, and CEO of Anglo American Brazil
• 2026 note: Expected to become COO of the combined “Anglo Teck” entity following the pending merger with Teck Resources

Anglo Teck merger: The US$53bn merger of equals is set to create a top-five copper producer. Fernandes is expected to carry the COO mandate into the combined entity, making his current stewardship a preview of a far larger operational portfolio.

10. Marcelo Pereira, AngloGold Ashanti

• Role: Chief Operating Officer, appointed June 2025
• Company and commodities: AngloGold Ashanti, a global gold producer
• Market capitalisation: approximately US$52.81bn
• Background: Joined in 2023 as SVP Latin America; prior senior roles at Vale, Kinross, Nexa, Taboca, and Itafos
• 2026 note: Broad commodity exposure across gold, copper, iron ore, and zinc

Pereira’s breadth across four commodities signals that AngloGold Ashanti values operational flexibility, a useful trait for a company managing gold assets across multiple challenging jurisdictions.

Technology at the operational front line: what these leaders are actually building

Knowing who these executives are matters less than knowing what they are concretely deploying. The proof sits in named operations, measured in tonnes, incidents, and downtime rather than press-release language.

• Rio Tinto runs its Gudai-Darri iron ore operation in the Pilbara with a fleet of 26 autonomous CAT 793F haul trucks and five autonomous drills, monitored from Perth 1,500 km away. The problem being solved is the twin cost of human exposure and haulage inefficiency across a remote site.

Gudai-Darri results: According to a Caterpillar support case study, the autonomous fleet has delivered productivity increases of over 30% and reduced the frequency of safety incidents by up to 50%, hauling more than one billion tonnes safely.

• BHP deployed a fully enclosed Robotic Cathode Stripping Machine at Olympic Dam, detailed in an August 2026 case study, to remove daily operator exposure to hazardous manual handling and cut downtime from copper jams. It has also rolled out a voice-to-text mobile app for logging geotagged hazards, computer-vision systems at Western Australia Iron Ore to spot foreign objects on conveyors, and extended reality (XR) smart helmets for remote field leadership.
• Newmont, following the Newcrest acquisition, uses Integrated Operations Centers that apply AI to monitor water consumption, haulage cycles, and dynamic operating parameters in real time, solving the coordination problem of a suddenly enlarged asset base.

The Newmont Integrated Operations Center and Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri remote monitoring hub are concrete expressions of AI-native operational control, a model where real-time sensor data, predictive algorithms, and human supervisors interact through a single unified interface rather than siloed dashboards.

• Barrick Gold has driven autonomous underground mining systems that were reported to improve safety and efficiency across its African operations by an estimated 22% in 2026.
• Anglo American launched a dedicated AI Centre of Excellence in March 2026, built to scale safe and responsible AI across the business for safer, more reliable daily operations.

The specificity of these deployments tells you the top tier has moved past AI as a talking point and into AI as an operational variable. That variable flows straight through to production costs and safety records, both of which land in investor returns. It also reframes what automation is for: Deloitte’s point is that technology is increasingly treated as a primary safety strategy, reducing human exposure to hazards, not simply a productivity add-on.

What the next operational cycle looks like for the leaders on this list

The profiles are a snapshot. What matters for anyone holding or evaluating these companies is the small set of variables that will move operational outcomes over the next 18 months. Three stand out.

1. The Anglo Teck regulatory outcome. The US$53bn merger has cleared antitrust review in Europe and South Korea as of April 2026, leaving Chinese regulatory approval as the final hurdle before a projected close between September 2026 and March 2027. The combined entity would rank as a top-five copper producer with more than 70% exposure to copper, and Ruben Fernandes’s expected COO mandate makes him the operational figure to watch through the integration.
2. Workforce succession. The silver tsunami, with over half the US and Canadian mining workforce expected to retire within a decade, is a medium-term risk that will separate companies with deep internal talent pipelines from those scrambling for external hires. Recruitment, training, and safety risks compound fastest at the most complex operations, which are precisely the ones these executives run.

Mining workforce succession risk is sharpest in North America, where retirement rates among experienced engineers and plant operators are running ahead of graduate intake, a dynamic that will test the depth of internal talent pipelines at exactly the operations these executives are responsible for.

1. Commodity exposure mapping. Collectively these leaders oversee the supply side of copper, gold, iron ore, nickel, cobalt, and lithium. Their operational decisions in 2026 and 2027 will shape the supply curves investors are already pricing, and Glencore’s 44.5% year-on-year valuation gain shows how quickly operational performance translates into market value.

The practical takeaway is that operational leadership stability, technology adoption pace, and workforce depth are becoming as relevant to valuation as commodity price assumptions. This list gives you a named basis for tracking those variables at the company level.

For investors wanting to translate operational leadership quality into a portfolio assessment framework, our full explainer on mining operator control strategies covers how operational decision-making structures affect production reliability, cost outcomes, and the risk profile of large-cap mining positions.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and forward-looking statements regarding mergers and operational outcomes are subject to change based on market developments and regulatory decisions.