Ivan Glasenberg

Biography

Ivan Glasenberg (born 1957) is the chief executive officer of Glencore, one of the world's largest commodity trading and mining companies. Glasenberg has or had citizenship of South Africa and Australia. He became a Swiss citizen in 2011. He is also on the boards of mining companies Xstrata plc and Minara Resources Ltd. Glasenberg was born in January 1957 in South Africa to a Jewish family. His father, Samuel Glasenberg, was "a luggage manufacturer and importer born in Lithuania", and his mother, Blanche, was South African. The family lived in Illovo, Gauteng, a suburb of Johannesburg. Glasenberg was an athlete, and by his early 20s was national junior champion in race walking. In his youth Glasenberg was also a friend of Mick Davis, who would become the CEO of mining company Xstrata. Glasenberg graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Accountancy from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Glasenberg was with Nexia Levitt Kirson, a firm of chartered accountants, for five years and is a Chartered Accountant, South Africa [CA (SA)]. He received his MBA from the IBEAR program at University of Southern California in 1983. Glasenberg joined Glencore in 1984, working in the coal department in South Africa and Australia. He managed Glencore's Hong Kong and Beijing offices from 1989 to 1990, and became head of the company's coal department in 1991. He was named CEO in 2002.

Research Interest

Focus on business management, accounts