Flying the flag in a crisis
what makes a person want to be a CEO? “One reason is that there is a huge opportunity to have an impact,” says Natascha Viljoen, CEO of Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) since April. There’s also a tacit “trust in your own ability”, she adds.
It’s a question worth asking because most people might have been hemming and hawing given the introduction Viljoen has had. She hadn’t even taken her seat when a full-blown crisis ballooned. That was in February when the firm’s processing facilities in Rustenburg, finely-tuned technology that turns concentrate into refined metal, exploded. The back-up unit also failed.
The outcome was a one-fifth cut to 2020 platinum group metals (PGM) production – about 900 000 ounces. Amplats’ financial
