User:SunChaser/sandbox

Andrew Stewart Mackenzie (born 20 December 1956)^[1][2] FRS^[3] is a Scottish businessman, and since 2013 has been CEO of BHP, the world's largest mining company.^[4][5] Trained as a geologist and organic geochemist, before his appointment as CEO of BHP, Mackenzie had over 30 years experience in oil and gas, petrochemicals, and minerals, and had held a variety of senior positions at BP, Rio Tinto, and BHP.

Andrew Stewart Mackenzie was born in December 1956 in St Albans, north of London, England, and his father was a general practitioner.^[6][7][8] He grew up in Kirkintilloch, a small industrial and mining town near Glasgow, Scotland,^{[9][10][8][11]} and first became interested in geology exploring the coalfields near Kirkintilloch.^[12][11] He excelled at school in Kirkintilloch and won a number of science prizes donated by a local miners’ welfare club.^[13][14]

He was educated at the University of St Andrews, where he graduated with a first-class bachelor's degree in Geology in 1977.^[10] He went on to study at the University of Bristol where he received a PhD in Organic Chemistry in 1981.^[10] His PhD thesis led to a paradigm shift in the understanding of the origin of petroleum in the subsurface,^[15] and continues to be utilized by oil explorers.^[16][17]

Mackenzie was awarded a Humboldt Research Fellowship to do post-doctoral research work from 1981 to 1982 at the Kernforschungszen­trum research centre in Jülich, Germany,^[18] where he helped devise new methods to pursue subterranean oil deposits through analysis in sedimentary rocks.^[11] He was also a fellow of the British Geological Society.^[4] Over the course of his early career, from 1981 to the early 1990s, he published over 50 research papers as a scientist,^{[4][19][20][21][22][23][24]} and his academic research produced findings still in use by academics and oil explorers in the 2010s.^[25]

In 1983, Mackenzie moved from academia and joined BP's research division. He was at the company for a total of 22 years, and among other titles held a range of senior technical and engineering positions. He initially worked his way to the finance division and became head of capital markets. By 1993 he was chief reservoir engineer, which entailed overall responsibility for BP’s oil and gas reserves and production.^[17] Later he was head of government and public affairs worldwide.^[26][27] In 1997 he became group vice president of technology, with overall responsibility for research and development, science, and engineering.^[17] Four years later he became group vice president of petrochemicals, stationed in the U.S.,^{[27][7][28][4][17]} and returned the company's plastics-and-solvents business to profitability.^[29]

In April 2004, Mackenzie left BP and joined Rio Tinto, as chief executive of its industrial minerals division. His activities included overseeing the building of a $5 billion titanium mine in Madagascar.^[14] He also served as chief executive officer of diamonds and minerals from June to November 2007.^[4][27][8] At the company he merged three separate businesses – borax, talc, and Dampier Salt – into a single unit, which streamlined and simplified reporting and services.^[25] He also developed a $5 billion metals project in Africa.^[25]

Mackenzie was recruited to BHP in November 2007, and appointed as group executive, chief executive of non-ferrous, and member of the Group Management Committee, with no designated start date.^[30][7] He left Rio Tinto and took a year off, in which he learned the Spanish language.^[31][32][33]

He joined BHP in November 2008 as chief executive of its non-ferrous division, which comprises base metals and energy coal operations,^[8][7][34] and for five years managed over half of BHP's 100,000 employees across four continents.^{[4][14][35][36]} He turned around performance at the Escondida Chilean copper mine, the world's largest copper mine, despite labor disputes and falling ore grades.^[29]

In May 2013 Mackenzie succeeded Marius Kloppers as the CEO of BHP.^[4][37] His first steps were to simplify BHP’s corporate structure, including removing a layer of corporate management, which freed the company to make progress in focused areas.^[38][39] He also consolidated the company's portfolio, and reduced its nine business units into five: iron ore; coal; copper; petroleum and potash; and aluminum, manganese, and nickel.^[38] He led the 2015 spin-off of South32,^[40] and in August 2017 initiated the sell-off of BHP's underperforming U.S. shale assets, most of which had been purchased in 2011 at the top of the market prior to his appointment as CEO;^[41][42][43] the sale was completed in October 2018 for $10.8 billion.^[44][45]

After five years of streamlining the company as CEO,^[45] particularly by demerging South32 and selling off BHP's shale assets, Mackenzie had pared the company down to four globally significant commodities – copper, iron ore, coal, and offshore oil – and 13 operated assets, in contrast to BHP's interests in 41 projects across 13 countries and six continents when he started as CEO in 2013.^[46][47] In fiscal 2018 BHP posted its highest profit since fiscal 2014; the gains were credited to Mackenzie's streamlining and cost-cutting.^[48][45]

Mackenzie was a trustee of the UK think tank Demos beginning in 1998,^[49] was also treasurer from 1999 through 2005,^[50][51] served as chairman from 2005 until 2007,^[52] and was a trustee from 2007 to June 2008.^[27]

He served as an independent non-executive director of Centrica from September 2005 to May 2013.^[27][28] He was on the board of directors of the Grattan Institute from 2013 through 2017.^[53][54] He has been a director and council member of the International Council on Mining and Metals since May 2013,^[55][56][2] and Deputy Chair since November 2017.^[55][56]

In 2016 he was elected honorary president of the German-Australian Chamber of Industry and Commerce, succeeding Lucy Turnbull.^[57][58][59]

In 1984 the organic geochemistry division of the Geochemical Society named MacKenzie's 1983 article "Isomerization and aromatization of hydrocarbons in sedimentary basins formed by extension"^[60] Best Paper of the year.^[61][62] In 1984 he received the F.W. Clarke Medal from the Geochemical Society, awarded annually to "to an early-career scientist for a single outstanding contribution to geochemistry or cosmochemistry, published either as a single paper or a series of papers on a single topic".^[63][64][65]

In 1986 he received the President's Award from the British Geological Society, conferred annually "upon geoscientists who are within ten years of their first degree in geoscience or a cognate subject and who have made a notable early contribution to the science".^[66][67] He received the 2002 Aberconway Medal from the British Geological Society, for his "extraordinary and long-lasting contributions" to the "understanding of petroleum generation, migration and entrapment".^[68]

He has received Honorary Doctorate of Science degrees from the University of Bristol (2011),^[17] Curtin University (2015),^[15] and King's College London (2015).^[69]

In January 2014 he was selected for the Science Council’s list of the top 100 UK practising scientists.^[70]

Mackenzie was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 2014.^[3][15] His nomination reads:

Andrew Mackenzie is one of the world's most influential applied earth scientists. He made seminal contributions to geochemistry in his early career, especially in relation to the formation of oil. For most of his career he has been a leader in the energy and mining industries working within BP, Rio Tinto and most recently in BHP Billiton. He has made major innovations in both technical and business arenas within these companies, and is pre-eminent as an earth scientist in the commercial world. He has recently been appointed CEO of BHP Billiton.^[3]

In 2017 he was listed on Debrett's 500, as one of the 25 most influential people in business,^[12] and the Australian Financial Review listed him as one of the 10 most powerful Australian business leaders in 2018.^[45]

Mackenzie speaks five languages, and has lived in six countries on four continents over the course of his career.^[4][36] He met his wife, Liz, whilst they were students at St Andrews.^[13] They live in Melbourne and have two daughters.^[7]