Within the company, apart from chairing board meetings, he will also chair the Investment Committee, a body which vets all important investment and other commercial decisions, and the Committee on Social and Environmental Accountability, a formal sub-committee of the main board.

Skinner is insistent that the terms "non executive" and "part time" should not be applied to his chairmanship. "Both can convey an impression of detachment, which would be totally at odds with my personal style," he says. "I want simply to be thought of as Rio Tinto's chairman. Period.

"Being chairman of a leading global company requires a substantial commitment of time, effort and energy and I have contracted to give the company the majority of my time. Rio Tinto will be, by far, my principal activity. From time to time there will undoubtedly be periods when even seven days a week will not be enough but I hope these may be balanced by other weeks when the pace is less frenetic."

Tracking back in time to the start of his business career, it's clear that Paul Skinner's switch from a natural science to a law degree did not hinder his progress through a series of sales and marketing jobs in Shell Chemicals. After working initially in the UK, he spent two years in Athens as sales manager for Shell's chemicals business in Greece.

Although Skinner confesses he is not a "brilliant natural linguist", he did become "reasonably competent" in Greek but regrets that it has become rusty through lack of practice. When, later in his career, he worked in Oslo he added good Norwegian to his linguistic armoury. "Languages are a bit like geology," he says with a smile. "Sedimentary layers get deposited and the youngest of them are the ones I find the easiest to reach."

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