14-25. How do you think the control function should be organized and managed at Anglo American? Although some observers might assume that Anglo American PLC is a U.S. company, in reality the company has never been American. Instead, Anglo American is based in the United Kingdom but has substantial operations in other parts of the world. The firm is the world’s fourth-largest diversified mining company. It has annual revenues of more than

$27 billion, profits of around $6.5 billion, and more than 100,000 employees The last 10 years have been a period of change for Anglo American. The major upheavals started in 2007 when Cynthia Carroll was appointed as CEO. The Times of London expressed shock at the appointment, referring to mining as “an irredeemably macho industry.” Not only was she not a man, Carroll was neither a mining industry veteran nor British (she’s an American). When her appointment was announced, Anglo’s stock immediately dropped $0.80 per share. The dice, observed the Times, were “probably loaded against her from the start,” and to make her job even more difficult, she was soon forced to embark on a $2-billion efficiency program involving a number of changes guaranteed to rile the old guard of the 91-year-old company. Her whirlwind campaign to cut costs by $450 million in the first half of 2009 earned her the nickname “Cyclone Cynthia,”

but many analysts and investors were unimpressed by the savings:

Because the entire industry was struggling with high costs during the recession, Carroll’s cost-cutting was seen as little more than the logical and obvious strategy to pursue