Stories from The Power Within: Iron Ore edition

As part of The Power Within campaign, this edition brings together three stories of colleagues from across our iron ore value chain – each playing a crucial role in how we create lasting value for our stakeholders.

Whether working in classrooms, control rooms or laboratories, these colleagues prove that our Purpose does not belong to one business, one job title or one leadership team. It lives in the everyday decisions of people who believe their work can improve lives, strengthen communities and help shape a better future.

Together, they show that mining’s biggest impact is no longer defined only by what comes out of the ground, but by the people determined to leave something better behind.

Empowering new generations

Sustainable change rarely starts with a bang. It begins quietly – in a classroom, in a conversation, in the moment a young person starts to believe they might have a future bigger than the circumstances around them.

In South Africa, particularly in communities surrounding our Kumba Iron Ore operations where opportunity can feel distant, education becomes more than learning. It builds confidence, resilience and hope – creating foundations that can echo for generations.

That is what drives Nasreen Sain.

Being the Skills and Education Principal working on our South Africa Education Programme is more than just a job for Nasreen.

“It's given me a purpose. It’s given me the power to change lives,” she says.

But the weight of the responsibility is not something she takes lightly. “Real change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes patience and consistency. It takes showing up again and again,” says Nasreen.

Launched in 2018, our Education Programme in South Africa is one of the many initiatives aimed at ensuring we leave a lasting positive impact in the communities where we operate.

Through its “whole school” approach, the programme not only supports learners, but also strengthens school systems, improves basic infrastructure and upskills teachers through training.

This holistic approach is particularly important in communities facing significant social and economic pressures, such as the small Northern Cape towns of Griekwastad and Loopeng. Many learners walk long distances to learn, while some rely on school for their only daily meal. Against this backdrop, education becomes about so much more than grades or exam results.

“Education is the cornerstone. It’s the foundation to creating an independent life-long learner,” says Nasreen, who joined the Education Programme as ICT manager in 2022 but now looks after the whole project. “The programme doesn’t just focus on results. It focuses on the confidence, the dignity, resilience and hope of the learner.”

Nasreen’s love for teaching comes from a four-year stint working at a school, which still shapes how she views the programme today.

“Standing in front of a classroom and empowering young kids to think critically and to understand is where I feel my euphoria, my adrenaline. That's my passion, educating the future of this country,” she says.

For Nasreen, the programme demonstrates what corporate investments can achieve when they are intentional, sustained and grounded in human impact.

In 2025 alone, Kumba Iron Ore invested R485 million, or about $30 million, in social initiatives, supporting 835 off-site jobs and benefiting over 10,000 learners, 330 teachers and 19 schools across communities where we operate.

The Education Programme reflects a broader belief that mining companies can – and should – play a role in building thriving communities, long after the life of any mine.

“We leave behind a blueprint that can be replicable,” she says. “We can support education meaningfully, not through once-off moments or symbolic gestures, but through commitment, humility and partnerships.”

She may not work directly in mining operations, yet Nasreen still feels closely connected to our broader Purpose: “This is re-imagining mining to improve people's lives, not just through what we extract, but through ensuring our communities are sustainably thriving.”

“What stays with me is, it’s not just the delivery – it’s about building something that lasts. And building it alongside people who live it, every day.”

What we leave behind

From South Africa, where education is helping young people imagine new futures, the story moves across the Atlantic Ocean to Brazil, where another team is shaping a different kind of legacy.

Modern mining is increasingly judged not only by what it extracts, but by how responsibly it operates. That includes the impact it has on nearby communities and the natural systems they depend on. At the Minas-Rio iron ore operation, the impact comes from people working together with a shared sense of purpose.

The Filtration Projects Team is at the centre of developing the Minas-Rio filtration plant, a facility envisioned with our Purpose – Re-imagining mining to improve people's lives – at its core.  The project is designed to filter and dry-stack 100% of the coarse tailings (85% of the total tailings generated), re-using the water from the filtration process, returning it to our operations and boosting the local economy by generating new businesses and jobs.

As Euler Piantino, Vice President, Projects, Brazil, reflects: “This is more than a technical achievement – it’s a commitment to re-imagining mining in a way that improves lives and protects our environment.”

But at the core of mining, and the filtration plant in particular, is teamwork.

This project reflects our values in action: safety, collaboration, integration, respect and innovation, brought to life by motivated people committed to delivering results and turning an ambitious vision into a success story.

This shared ownership and collaboration have shaped a strong and enduring culture around the project, one that extends across the business and instils a genuine sense of pride in the work teams do every day.

The benefits of the filtration plant are both environmental and social, generating substantial economic opportunities for the surrounding communities. Around 20% of the nearly 3,800 people who worked on the plant’s construction were from within or around the local Conceição do Mato Dentro community in Minas Gerais, along with 70% of the current 350-strong workforce at the site.

“Tailings stacking reinforces our commitment to modern, responsible and sustainable mining.”

Gustavo Henrique Gomes Pitombeira, Tailings Stacking Operations Manager

Forging what’s next

The impact does not stop at the mine gate. Our premium iron ore product is a crucial part of the wider supply chain, essential to addressing one of the world’s most urgent industrial challenges: the transition to lower-carbon steelmaking.

This fundamental shift depends on innovation emerging through thousands of decisions, partnerships and technologies, rather than a single breakthrough. Some begin far upstream, long before steel is made.

This is where Christina Cheong sees her role.

As Head of Technical Marketing, Integrated Sales & Operations Planning (ISOP), based in Singapore with our Marketing business, Christina oversees the logistics of supplying Minas-Rio’s premium iron ore to customers across the globe and leads a team of technical managers who work closely with steel mills on the use of our products in lower carbon steelmaking. Having begun her career as a chemical engineer, she has spent the past two decades in the iron ore industry and now works at the intersection of mining, steelmaking and decarbonisation.

“When I came into the technical marketing role, my eyes were opened to the significant impact that we, as a producer of premium iron ore, can have on low-carbon emission steelmaking,” explains Christina.

Steel production remains one of the world’s largest industrial sources of carbon emissions. However, as Anglo American’s premium iron ore has a higher iron content, it contains lower levels of “gangue” (here, this means unwanted materials such as silica and alumina), which must be heated, melted and removed during the steelmaking process. In simple terms, our iron ore helps steelmakers produce more steel from less raw material at a lower energy intensity, thereby generating fewer emissions per tonne of steel.

As steelmakers shift away from using traditional blast furnace towards direct reduced iron (DRI) technologies, or even green hydrogen-based DRI, emissions could eventually move close to zero, Christina says – and our premium iron ore products can help to play a key role in this transition.

Overseeing Anglo American’s various decarbonisation partnerships with steelmakers across Europe and Asia, Christina works closely with her team of technical managers to grow the business through lower-carbon steelmaking initiatives.

Importantly, her work connects directly with a personal desire for a cleaner planet, and she has seen first-hand the tangible impact that decarbonisation partnerships like these can have on the environment. That direct connection between industrial innovation and everyday quality of life gives her work deeper meaning.

“Making the world a better place for everyone, with lower CO2 emissions, cleaner air and less waste – I'm really humbled by the opportunity to play a small role in making it possible,” she says.

Meanwhile, innovation at the mines themselves continues to push for further progress in the green transition. One processing technology, ultra-high-dense-media-separation or UHDMS, being deployed at Kumba’s Sishen mine in South Africa, has the potential to transform material once considered waste into iron ore. “If we have technologies like that, we can actually beneficiate what was formerly classified as waste into a usable ore – or even better, as a premium iron ore product – that unlocks a lot of value,” Christina explains.

“It’s a privilege to be in a role where I work with very qualified and capable colleagues who are equally on board to make things happen – both within our iron ore marketing team and our colleagues at the mines.”

A future made possible, together

These stories are separated by oceans, businesses and disciplines, yet they are all part of the same unfolding idea: that progress begins with people.

None of them set out to change the world alone. But that is how real change happens – patiently and collectively, through individuals who care deeply about what they leave behind.

We believe that mining is more than what we extract from the ground. It creates possibilities. The chance for people, communities and whole industries to move forward, towards a brighter future, together.