With BHP announcing Brandon Craig as the new chief executive officer at BHP, replacing Mike Henry, Australian Mining takes a dive into the 53-year-old’s career to see who he is and why he’s been picked for the job.
Reports claim Craig – who joined BHP in 1999 – wasn’t actually on the radar for most investors or a media favourite to get the top job, but the 53-year-old engineer’s skills clearly aligned with the thinking of the board and BHP chairman Ross McEwan – noting Craig’s “extensive experience” in leading the company’s strategy.
“We are very pleased an executive of Brandon Craig’s calibre and extensive experience has been appointed as our new CEO to lead the execution of our strategy. I am confident that his discipline and focus will continue to drive BHP’s high-performance culture and advance the company’s unrivalled pipeline of growth options to maximise shareholder returns,” McEwan said.
With a cluster of big copper projects in South America set to dominate BHP’s spending in the decade ahead, as seen in annual reports, Craig already has experience in the field and providing “operational excellence”.
In its announcement of Craig’s appointment, BHP said he has “advanced BHP’s high quality growth options, increasing copper guidance for FY2026 and FY2027 and targeting around 2.5 million tonnes of copper equivalent production per year by the mid-2030s.”
Craig’s appointment comes only days after the announcement that another one of BHP’s major plays in North America, the Resolution Copper joint venture with Rio Tinto, had taken another step forward towards production with the completion of a Federal land exchange.
Copper isn’t Craig’s only experience with BHP, having worked as the asset president for its Western Australian iron ore operations (WAIO) during the COVID years and, before that, working as asset president for New South Wales energy coal across the company’s BHP Billiton subsidiary.
Even working as a marketing manager in the early days of his time at the company, it’s safe to say Craig lives and breathes the values BHP would be looking for in a new chief executive officer.
Taking to social media, Craig noted he was “humbled” to be appointed as the new CEO of the company and that he is looking forward to working with the outgoing chief executive Mike Henry, spending time with teams, partners and shareholders over the next few months before officially taking over the reins at the Big Australian on July 1.