Rio Tinto has announced the appointment of Kaisa Hietala to its board as a non-executive director.
Hietala, a Finnish citizen, already serves as a NED on the boards of ExxonMobil and Smurfit Kappa Group, a global packaging company. She is chair of the board at Tracegrow, a private Finnish sustainable fertilisers company.
Hietala is also a member of the supervisory board of Oulu University in Finland, and was formerly a board member of Kemira Oy, a Finnish specialty chemicals company.
After beginning her career in upstream oil and gas exploration, Hietala later became executive vice president of renewable products at Neste, a petroleum refining and marketing company.
Rio Tinto’s chair, Dominic Barton, said: “I am delighted to welcome Kaisa to the Rio Tinto board. She brings a deep understanding of the resources industry, sustainability and renewables that will be invaluable as we work to ensure Rio Tinto thrives in a decarbonising world.
“As part of our continuing refresh of board capabilities, we are progressing well with a number of other searches to identify non-executive directors with expertise in both mining and sustainability, and expect to announce further appointments in due course,” he added.