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​Sirius Minerals, which is planning to open a major potash mine in North Yorkshire, is to part company with its finance director after just two months in the job.
By The Newsroom
Published 10th Dec 2014, 21:47 BST

Sirius said Rachel Rhodes will leave on December 19 and that the decision was by mutual agreement.

It is thought that Ms Rhodes was not the right fit for the company and the two sides decided to part swiftly rather than string the process out.

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The company declined to say anything further about Ms Rhodes’s departure other than to say it was “mutually agreed”.

Following the move, Thomas Staley, whose appointment as ​corporate ​d​evelopment ​d​irector was announced ​in August, has been promoted to chief financial officer.

​Chris Fraser, ​m​anaging ​d​irector and CEO of Sirius, ​said: “On behalf of the ​bo​ard I would like to thank Rachel for her contribution and wish her well in her future endeavours.

“We are pleased to be able to make this important internal promotion and in Thomas we have an outstanding talent with the core skills and leadership to help take the company forward.”

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Sirius said that Mr Staley has over ten years of experience developing energy, resource and infrastructure projects across a range of international markets.

It added that his core competency is structuring commercial arrangements and financing projects using a wide range of capital.

​Mr Staley has worked for Origin Energy and Babcock & Brown in Australia and Mubadala Development Company in Abu Dhabi. He was previously responsible for the financial and governance oversight of Origin Energy’s portfolio of international development projects.

Sirius appointed Rachel Rhodes as chief financial officer on October 6.

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She previously worked at​ ​Anglo American, and most recently​ ​at London Mining​, ​where she served as chief financial officer and a director for five years.

​Ms​ ​Rhodes has over 15 years’ experience in the mining sector​ and is​ a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales​. She qualified in 1997.

At the time of her appointment, Mr Fraser said: “We are excited to have secured a CFO of the calibre of Rachel and she complements our existing team extremely well.”

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