BHP Group Limited announced on 18 March 2026 that Brandon Craig will become Chief Executive Officer of the world's largest mining company on 1 July 2026, succeeding Mike Henry who steps down after six and a half years leading the Melbourne-headquartered miner through one of the most consequential strategic reshapings in its history.

Craig, 25 years a BHP employee, currently serves as the company's President Americas, a role he has held since March 2024. In that position he has overseen BHP's growth strategy across Canada, the United States and South America, a portfolio that has come to define the company's future direction.

Under his stewardship, BHP became the world's largest copper producer, extended production guidance at Escondida, the world's single largest copper mine and created the Vicuña joint venture, a greenfield copper and gold project with the potential to rank among the world's top producing mines.

The Jansen potash project in Saskatchewan, Canada, which Craig also oversees, is on track to begin operations in mid-2027, adding a commodity with structural long-term demand fundamentals driven by global food security dynamics.

A minimum shareholding requirement of five times annual pre-tax base salary applies, with a two-year post-retirement holding requirement thereafter.

Henry, who took the helm in January 2020, leaves having presided over a fundamental repositioning of BHP. His tenure coincided with a deliberate exit from the assets that defined the old BHP, the petroleum business was demerged, the coal portfolio was high-graded and reduced, and the dual-listed company structure that had long frustrated investors was simplified into a single primary listing.

The company pivoted hard toward copper and potash, the two commodities most directly tied to electrification and decarbonisation demand, and the results of that strategic call are now evident in the earnings profile. Brandon's experience in the Americas come in handy as the company pivots the region in the new era of clean energy.

Over half of BHP's first-half earnings in the most recent reporting period were sourced from copper, a ratio that would have been unthinkable a decade ago for a company whose identity was built around iron ore and coal.

The iron ore business Henry also strengthened, with the Western Australia Iron Ore operations cementing their position as the world's lowest cost major iron ore producer, the same business Craig previously ran before moving to the Americas.

That operational thread connecting the outgoing and incoming CEOs is not incidental. Craig's record in Western Australia demonstrated an ability to run large, complex, integrated operations, mines, rail and port at the performance levels BHP's board requires, before he moved to the growth-facing Americas portfolio.

Henry's shareholder returns record is the number BHP's board chose to headline in the succession announcement: average total shareholder returns of approximately 17% per annum across his tenure, with around US$80 billion returned to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.

The greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 30% and the achievement of a gender-balanced workforce rounded out the environmental and social markers the board chose to highlight alongside the financial ones.

Craig's immediate agenda when he takes over on 1 July is largely set by the pipeline his predecessor built. The Jansen potash mine commissioning in mid-2027 will be the most visible near-term capital event.

The copper growth trajectory targeting approximately 2.5 million tonnes of copper equivalent production per year by the mid-2030s provides the medium-term volume story.

The Vicuña joint venture, still in development, represents the longer-dated option on what BHP believes will be structurally undersupplied copper markets as the energy transition accelerates demand.

Henry will remain in a transitional advisory role through to 30 November 2026, when his employment with BHP formally ends.

He will participate in the FY2026 Cash and Deferred Plan award in the ordinary course but will not receive a 2026 Long-Term Incentive award. Unvested deferred rights are retained subject to standard vesting conditions.

BHP's Chair Ross McEwan said Craig's appointment followed a formal succession process and described the incoming CEO as an executive whose discipline and focus would continue to drive the company's high-performance culture.

Craig, for his part, said he is committed to generating long-term value for shareholders while building on the foundation Henry put in place.

The transition at BHP's top comes at a moment when the company's strategic bets on copper and potash are beginning to pay out, but before the most significant capital projects those bets required have reached full production.

Craig inherits a BHP that is both more coherent in its portfolio and more exposed to the delivery risk of major growth projects than the company was when Henry took over.

The board's confidence in his appointment rests substantially on the evidence that he helped build those projects and understands their execution demands from the inside.