Christine Morris has resigned as chief financial officer (CFO) of Fortescue Metals. She is the 11th executive to leave the company in three years.
Morris was appointed to the position in June of this year to replace outgoing CFO Ian Wells. Wells resigned from the position in January, saying he was keen to “spend time with family and friends”.
At the time of her appointment, Morris said she was delighted to be joining Fortescue and was dedicated to delivering the company mission of eliminating emissions profitably.
“My focus will be on continuing to provide exceptional value for Fortescue shareholders and maintaining and growing the strength of our iron ore and emerging critical minerals business,” Morris said.
There has been no update yet about the reason for her decision to leave the company, but Fortescue has appointed its group manager finance and tax Apple Paget as acting CFO.
The news comes just three days after chief executive officer Fiona Hick departed the company six months after accepting the position.
According to the iron ore major, Hick’s departure was a mutual decision between her and the company.
Speaking at the Boao Forum in Perth on Wednesday, founder Andrew Forrest opened up about the resignation.
“All I can say is that people evolve (and) there is a difference between where they’re going and the whole mission of the company before anyone joined,” he said.
The major miner released a presentation yesterday detailing the impacts of global warming and what the company is doing to slow it. According to the presentation, Fortescue is set on creating green energy to replace fossil fuels and designing green tech to enable real zero.
To advise Fortescue on its clean energy ambitions, the company will bring in former British chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng. He will be employed in a part-time capacity.
Kwarteng was the chancellor to former British prime minister Liz Truss. His mini-budget has been hailed as the reason the pound crashed.
It was also announced on September 1 that Guy Debelle, non-executive director on the board of Fortescue subsidiary Fortescue Future Industries, had also quit. According to the Australian Financial Review (AFR), Debelle had submitted his registration a couple of weeks ago.
“I’m moving on. I’ve had a great time, learned a lot at Fortescue, it was a great experience but onto other stuff now,” he told the AFR.