Rio Tinto Marine

Antony 

I graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor of Commerce from Murdoch University, Perth, majoring in International Marketing and Management. I joined the organisation in June 1998, in the marketing department of the iron ore group. I travelled extensively in Asia and also had the opportunity to visit many remote and rugged places in the North West of Australia and even Labrador City, Canada.

As part of my ongoing commercial development, I moved in Business Planning and then Rio Tinto Marine. With the support of Rio Tinto, I completed my Executive MBA at Curtin Business School in Perth, and I have now been given the opportunity to relocate to Singapore, where I have been seconded to the Chlor Alkali Unit (as marketing agent for Rio Tinto Minerals - salt and gypsum products, and procurement agent for Rio Tinto Aluminum - caustic soda requirements). In this role I am responsible for managing the freight requirements for around 7 million tonnes of salt and gypsum and developing a freight strategy for caustic soda. I am also enjoying the opportunity of an international assignment and living and learning more about the Asian culture.

Working for Rio Tinto has been a great experience, where I have travelled, undertaken further study, developed new skills, had a variety of challenging roles and made many friends both within and external to Rio Tinto in all parts of the world.

Iwona

When I graduated from the University of Western Australia with an honours degree in Marketing, I never thought that I'd be working in Melbourne as a business analyst and studying again three years later.

I started with Robe River in the Marketing team as a graduate in 2003 not knowing what to expect and was quickly fascinated by the reality of bulk commodity business to business marketing. I saw the operations end to end, from drilling and blasting, through to loading the product onto ships through to converting our raw material into steel at mills in China. I was involved in planning how much of which products went where and to whom and also had the opportunity to meet with customers face to face.

Some time in Business Improvement deepened my knowledge of the operations and saw me spending increasing amounts of time at site in the Pilbara, whilst learning about Six Sigma process improvement methodology. From there I moved to Melbourne, to Rio Tinto's Marine business unit and have focussed on learning about and forecasting the freight market. I work in conjunction with Analysts from all over the group, across a range of commodities, to develop a view about where the freight market is going over the next few years.

Over the last four years, I've been exposed to a variety of roles, worked with amazing people and have had opportunities to develop my skills and capabilities in a number of ways. I'm half way through an MBA, and looking forward to my next challenge in this exciting industry. One of the great things about Rio Tinto is that there are plenty of places to go, you may not know where you're heading next, but you always know that it will be interesting.