Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 19, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleBHP is set to name Geraldine Slattery as its first female CEO, succeeding Mike Henry by 2026, marking a historic leadership change.
(Reuters) - BHP Group is likely to appoint Geraldine Slattery, who heads the miner's Australia operations, as its first female chief executive in 140 years, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
CEO Mike Henry is expected to step down by the middle of 2026 after five years at the helm, the report said, citing unnamed people "familiar with the board's thinking".
According to the FT report, the company has said the board was "not in a rush" to make a change.
BHP did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Slattery has been at BHP for three decades and previously led the company's U.S. petroleum business.
Peer Rio Tinto also has a new chief executive and appointed insider Simon Trott to the top job in mid-July. Trott earlier headed the company's most profitable iron ore unit.
BHP, the world's biggest listed miner, regularly rotates top talent through key roles, with internal CEO candidates being mentored for years by the chair and some board members as a sort of pre-screening, a source familiar with the company told Reuters in May.
(Reporting by Shivangi Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo and Pooja Desai)
Corporate governance refers to the systems, principles, and processes by which a company is directed and controlled. It encompasses the relationships among the stakeholders and the goals for which the corporation is governed.
Leadership transition is the process of changing leaders in an organization, which can involve succession planning, where a new leader is identified and prepared to take over responsibilities from the outgoing leader.
A board of directors is a group of individuals elected to represent shareholders and oversee the activities of a company. They are responsible for making key decisions and ensuring the company's prosperity.
The mining industry involves the extraction of minerals and other geological materials from the earth. It includes various sectors such as coal, metals, and non-metallic minerals, contributing significantly to the global economy.
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