en.Wedoany.com Reported - Shareholders of Brazil's Vale S.A. held an Extraordinary General Meeting (AGE) on July 22, 2026, electing Manuel Lino "Ollie" Silva de Sousa Oliveira as Chairman of the Board. Oliveira defeated current Vice Chairman Marcelo Gasparino with nearly 2 billion votes in favor, and his term will last until April 2027. This election follows the resignation of former Chairman Daniel Stieler in early July, after the company's largest individual shareholder—Previ, the pension fund for employees of Banco do Brasil—had previously called for Stieler's early removal.
Founded in 1942 and headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Vale is one of the world's largest producers of iron ore and nickel, and a strategic pillar of the Brazilian economy. New Chairman Oliveira, aged 74, is an independent director holding dual British and Portuguese nationality. He graduated from the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa, with a degree in Accounting and Business Economics. With over 45 years of experience in corporate finance and strategy, he has held senior executive positions at international mining giants such as Anglo American and De Beers. Oliveira has served as an independent director of Vale since 2021, as Lead Independent Director (LID) since 2023, as a technical expert on the Audit and Risk Committee since 2023, and became a member of the Sustainability Committee in May 2025.
The election was conducted through a shareholder vote, with participating shareholders representing 82.4% of the company's capital. Oliveira received 1,977,262,848 votes in favor, while Gasparino received 1,065,493,489 votes. After his victory, Oliveira issued an open letter reaffirming the board's "firm commitment to long-term strategic planning" and pledged to ensure capital allocation discipline, driving the company to "sustainably and continuously restore its global leadership position."
At the same meeting, shareholders elected Ieda Gomes Yell to fill the board seat vacated by Stieler's resignation. Yell is an independent consultant who previously served as President of BP Brasil and CEO of Comgás, with extensive experience in international energy and infrastructure. Her election resulted in Previ losing a board seat. This board change ends several weeks of governance turmoil at Vale.
