The US gold company has announced the appointment of industry long-time mining executive Natascha Viljoen to the position of executive vice president and chief operating officer.
Viljoen is the current chief executive officer (CEO) of Anglo American’s subsidiary platinum business in South Africa, a role she has performed since 2020. Viljoen also has three decades of industry experience across a range of commodities.
During her time at Anglo American, Viljoen managed a team of more than 25,000, as well as six owned and joint venture mining operations.
A metallurgical engineer, Viljoen holds a Bachelor of Engineering from North West University in South Africa and an Executive MBA from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
“Natascha has shown outstanding leadership transforming technical processing capabilities at Anglo American and we are excited to have her join the Newmont executive leadership team,” Newmont president and CEO Tom Palmer said.
“Natascha will further strengthen our leadership capabilities as we continue to build a resilient and profitable future for the company.”
Anglo American thanked Viljoen for her contribution to the company.
“Natascha is an outstanding leader who transformed our technical processing capabilities and performance having joined us in 2014, subsequently leading our world-class platinum group metals business for the last three years,” Anglo American CEO Duncan Wanblad said.
“Her commitment to lead Anglo American Platinum and its continued performance improvement as a platform for growth through her notice period is a clear demonstration of her strong personal qualities. The process to identify her successor is now underway.”
Newmont has recently made headlines in Australia after offering to buy local gold company Newcrest.
In early February, Newcrest confirmed it received a $24.45 billion takeover offer from Newmont, which is the world’s largest gold mining company.
Australian-born Tom Palmer has run Newmont since 2019. The US gold titan already produces seven million ounces of gold per year, more than three times the amount of Newcrest.