Leng – who will take the reins when Skinner officially leaves the job on April 20 – is currently deputy chairman of Tata Steel in India and chairman of Tata Steel Europe, a position he has held since 2003.
He joined Tata Steel through the takeover of Corus in April 2007 after working with Corus since 2001.
Before Corus, Leng worked with Laporte, a United Kingdom-based chemical company, and his early business years were spent at John Waddington.
Leng is also chairman of Doncaster Group, a specialist engineering company, non-executive director at Alstom, and a senior adviser of HSBC.
It has been a tumultuous week for Rio as the company seeks to pay down its heavy debt load by cutting costs – and reducing staff.
Yesterday it was revealed the miner was slowing work at its Argyle diamond mine and shedding around 220 staff, while on Tuesday the $US371 million Automated Train Operations (ATO) program in Western Australia’s Pilbara was shelved.
WA has not been the only state hit, with copper mine Northparkes in New South Wales also feeling the pinch with 26 staff to lose their jobs and a further 320 contractors at the mine to have their contracts finalised.
In Queensland, Rio will slash 50 full-time contractor jobs and 15% of production at its Kestrel longwall in the Bowen Basin as the mine scales down its coal preparation plant to a five-day roster in the wake of lower coking coal demand.
Rio also this week postponed $US2.5 billion worth of expansion work on the Corumbá iron ore project in Brazil.
Earlier in the week Rio announced Rio Tinto Alcan chief executive Dick Evans was stepping down from the role.
His replacement is Jacynthe Côté, currently president and chief executive officer, Primary Metal, Rio Tinto Alcan.
Meanwhile, Rio’s production report is due out later today, and is expected to show falls in production across a number of key metals, including iron ore and copper, as the company scales back its operations.
Already, analysts are downgrading profit margins for the company with Credit Suisse lowering its target price for Rio from $A63 to $51, according to Dow Jones Newswires.
Shares in the major were last trading at $37.28, down $3.33 or 8%.
