The chair of Rio Tinto has just taken a second job attracting foreign capital into Canada.
Dominic Barton was appointed part-time chair of Invest in Canada on 31 August, alongside a new chief executive. The agency has been handed a target of catalysing C$1 trillion in public, private and institutional investment over five years.
If you read his record backwards the logic is obvious. Thirty years at McKinsey & Company, nine of them as global managing partner. Canada's Ambassador to China from 2019 to 2021. Chair of Rio Tinto. Chair of LeapFrog Investments.
It's an interesting change we are starting to see in board searches. At the top of this sector, the scarce capability is no longer the ability to run an asset. It is the ability to move credibly between three rooms
- the capital markets room
- the sovereign room
- the technical room
without losing the confidence of any of them.
Critical minerals policy has played a big role in this shift. When governments become co-investors, offtakers and permitting authorities in the same transaction, a board that cannot read the state is carrying an unpriced risk.
Most mining boards are still constructed for a world where government was a regulator you complied with rather than a counterparty you negotiated against.
We see it in briefs fairly often. Clients ask for a chair with operating pedigree and end up shortlisting people who can open doors in Washington, Canberra, etc. Those are two different searches, and pretending otherwise wastes a lot of time.
The board seat and the ambassador's chair are converging. Companies still recruiting chairs purely on operating pedigree are hiring for the wrong cycle.
