Simon Trott

Chief Executive Rio Tinto

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Simon Trott has been Chief Executive of Rio Tinto since 25 August 2025, appointed by the board on 15 July that year to succeed Jakob Stausholm. He is an unusual figure at the head of a major mining group: the son of Western Australian wheatbelt farmers who took an agriculture degree, went home to run the family farm, decided he preferred working around people, and joined Rio Tinto as a fly-in fly-out worker. More than twenty-five years later he runs the whole company. The intervening career covered the odd corners of the portfolio – salt, uranium, borates and diamonds – before he built Rio Tinto’s Commercial function from nothing as its first Chief Commercial Officer, and then took charge of Iron Ore in 2021, the division that generates most of the group’s profit and which at that point badly needed its external relationships repaired. He moved to London on appointment.

Career Highlights

• Appointed Chief Executive on 15 July 2025, effective 25 August 2025, succeeding Jakob Stausholm.
• Personally certified Rio Tinto plc’s Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2025 as Chief Executive under Section 302 of Sarbanes-Oxley, filed 19 February 2026.
• Chief Executive of Iron Ore from 2021 to 2025, where he improved operational performance, rebuilt stakeholder relationships and brought to market Rio Tinto’s biggest new iron ore mine in more than a decade.
• Rio Tinto’s first Chief Commercial Officer, establishing the group’s Commercial operations function.
• Managing Director of the Salt, Uranium, Borates and Diamonds businesses, spanning operations in Australia, Namibia, the United States, Canada and Serbia.
• A member of Rio Tinto’s Executive Committee since 2018.
• Presented the group’s 2026 half-year results, which included a $3.4 billion interim dividend at a 50% payout in line with the company’s half-year practice.

Professional Journey

Trott grew up on a family farm in the Western Australian wheatbelt, roughly 215 kilometres south-east of Perth, and took a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture with honours at the University of Western Australia, graduating in 1998. He went back to work the farm, and by his own account enjoyed it without loving it – he wanted work that put him around people. Soon afterwards he joined Rio Tinto as a fly-in fly-out worker, which is close to the bottom of the organisation he now leads. The family farm has since been sold.

His rise through the company took him across commodities rather than up a single vertical. He held Managing Director roles covering the Salt, Uranium, Borates and Diamonds businesses – a portfolio spread across Australia, Namibia, the United States, Canada and Serbia and consisting largely of assets that sit outside the iron ore and copper core. He was then made Rio Tinto’s first Chief Commercial Officer, a newly created role in which he built the group’s Commercial function, based in Singapore, consolidating marketing, sales and customer relationships that had previously sat inside individual product groups. He joined the Executive Committee in 2018.

In 2021 he moved to Perth to run Iron Ore. The division is Rio Tinto’s profit engine, and he took it over at the most difficult possible moment in its history, after the destruction of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters had cost the company its previous chief executive and much of its standing with Traditional Owners, government and investors. His tenure there combined operational recovery, relationship repair and growth: Rio Tinto credits him with strengthening performance, rebuilding stakeholder partnerships and securing new mine developments, including bringing to market the group’s largest new iron ore mine in over a decade.

The board named him Chief Executive on 15 July 2025. Chair Dominic Barton described him as “an outstanding leader with a deep understanding of mining and a track record of delivering operational excellence across our business”, and Trott called it “a privilege to have the opportunity to lead Rio Tinto”. He took office on 25 August 2025 and relocated from Perth to London. As an internal appointment with operational rather than financial credentials, his mandate has been read as continuity of strategy executed harder – the 2026 half-year presentation he fronted framed the company around operational excellence, growth delivery, and capital efficiency and discipline, with a returns policy of 40 to 60% of underlying earnings through the cycle.

Education

University of Western Australia

Bachelor of Science (Agriculture) with Honours, graduated 1998