Mincor announced on Wednesday the change in senior management at the nickel miner, which will see Mr Southam leave the company next month to pursue family, travel and personal interests.
Ms Iwanow’s appointment will see her become just the second serving female chief executive of a WA mining company along with Lynas Rare Earths boss Amanda Lacaze, given Fortescue Metals Group boss Elizabeth Gaines will be stepping down from her role next month.
Ms Iwanow, who will formally join Mincor in early November after serving out her notice period as general manager at OZ’s Prominent Hill copper/gold mine in South Australia, is also a former long-serving executive at Rio Tinto.
“I am pleased to be joining the Mincor team as the company positions itself as a key partner in the world’s decarbonisation story,” she said in a statement.
“David and the team have done a wonderful job to re-establish Mincor’s Kambalda nickel operations and I look forward to working together to deliver strong operational performance and the company’s next phase of growth.”
Before joining OZ four years ago, Ms Iwanow had a varied 14-year career at Rio, including senior site based roles at the mining giant’s Paraburdoo and Brockman iron ore operations, along with a period where she worked alongside former chief executive Sam Walsh spearheading the company’s Global Transformation Program.
She is a Fellow of the AusIMM and was named as one of the Top-100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining in 2020.
Under Mr Southam’s leadership over the past 3½ years, Mincor reclaimed its title as a nickel producer this year with the restart of its Kambalda operations which were shuttered in 2016 on the back of plunging nickel prices.
Rising prices for the metal underpinned by its growing importance as a battery metal has helped drive the restart, but Mr Southam was also key in renegotiating favourable offtake terms for the miner with BHP’s Nickel West.
He said he had made the decision to step down, consistent with his views on leadership transition that it was a logical time to pass the baton to someone with a slightly different skill-set to drive operational excellence and pursue the company’s pipeline of exciting organic growth opportunities.
“Not only have we reclaimed the company’s status as a leading nickel miner, but we have also achieved all our ambitious targets and enjoyed considerable exploration success, initially with Cassini and now a new LN04a resource at the Golden Mile – providing a strong foundation for our next chapter of growth,” Mr Southam said.
“All of this has been achieved against the backdrop of a global pandemic.“
Mr Southam will step down on August 12 after presenting next week at the annual Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum in Kalgoorlie for the last time. Mincor chairman Brett Lambert will act in an executive capacity until Ms Iwanow starts later this year.
