Industry success Featuring Chris Griffith

INDUSTRY SUCCESS

CEO ALUMNUS: CHRIS GRIFFITH

The South African Academy of Engineering (SAAE) invited Griffith to present the keynote address at the 2020 Hendrik van der Bijl Memorial Lecture.

Until recently, Griffith was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Anglo American Platinum Limited. As an alumnus of the University of Pretoria’s Department of Mining Engineering, he has made a name for himself in the business world by implementing the turnaround of the world’s leading Platinum Group Metals (PGM) company, Anglo American Platinum.

After obtaining his BEng (Hons) (Mining Engineering) degree from the University of Pretoria in 1988, he held several positions at Anglo Platinum, gaining much of his practical experience at Amandelbult Mine, and later as the General Manager setting up the BRPM mine. From 2005 to 2008, he looked after Anglo Platinum’s portfolio consisting of six different joint ventures. In July 2008, he was appointed as CEO of Kumba Iron Ore.

In September 2012, Griffith was appointed CEO of Anglo American Platinum Limited. During his tenure as CEO, he successfully repositioned the company’s portfolio to be safer, more productive, more profitable and more socially acceptable. By restructuring and repositioning the company, he was able to take it from a serious loss-making company focused on platinum production volume to a profitable PGM company focused on value, people, and owning and operating the best assets.

He succeeded in reducing the company’s overheads by 48% from 2013, ensuring that it significantly outperformed input cost inflation and peer group unit cost performance. Furthermore, he saw the company reduce the lost time frequency rate by 63% and total recordable case frequency rate by 77% from 2012. In 2019, the company was also able to record zero fatalities due to its focus on mine safety.

Since his appointment as CEO, he drove an organisational cultural change programme that focused on leadership, values and engagement. Despite the incredibly tough market environment between 2012 and 2017, he managed to materially change the company’s focus on and investment in people development, social investment, the mechanisation and modernisation of mining and processing practices, market development and demand creation for PGMs. Under his management, the company’s share price had risen to R1 307 with a market cap of R360 billion by the end of 2019, compared to a share price of R413 (with a market cap of R111 billion) in September 2012.

Griffith has been recognised as a leading businessman and strategist. In 2010 and 2012, he was awarded the title of Businessman of the Year by African Access National Business Awards, and in 2018, he was recognised as the Best CEO in Metals and Mining by the Institutional Investor Emerging EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) Executive Team.