Sam Walsh

Sam Walsh was born in 1949 and grew up in the Melbourne seaside suburb of Brighton. His father died when he was 15.

Walsh attended Brighton Grammar School and Taylor's College in Melbourne. He graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce from Melbourne University, and completed a Fellowship Program at Kettering University in Michigan. He became a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management, Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Management, Australian Institute of Company Directors, The Institute of Directors (UK), and Australian Academy of Technical Sciences and Engineering.

After graduating from Melbourne University, Walsh began his career as a trainee buyer at General Motors. During the next 20 years in the automotive industry, he was promoted to and held senior positions at General Motors and at Nissan Australia.

Controversy

Based on Rio Tinto submission to the Senate Enquiry, Sam Walsh was the CEO of Rio Tinto when the controversial decision of presenting only one mining plan to the PKKP people was made. This led to the destruction of Juukan 1 & 2 sacred sites in May 2020. 3 other mining plans were considered. They didn't involve disturbing the sites. The choice of the mining plan was driven by access to less than 10 Million Tonnes of high grade iron ore for an incremental value of $138m. During Walsh's term as CEO the Juukan Gorge was not disturbed following his verbal instruction not to mine the Gorge.