Tom Albanese to join Vedanta Resources as chief executive

Tom Albanese left Rio Tinto last year, he set to join Vedanta (GETTY IMAGES)

Tom Albanese, the mining boss ousted from Rio Tinto in the wake of multi-billion-pound writedowns for ill-judged takeovers, has landed the top job at the controversy-ridden Vedanta Resources.

Albanese left Rio in January last year after the company booked a $3 billion (£1.8 billion) hit on the value of coal assets in Mozambique that he had bought just two years earlier.

He resigned amid a total of $14 billion in writedowns.

However, he was one of several chief executives caught out by the industry’s downturn.

At Vedanta, he will work under the watchful eye of the hands-on founder Anil Agarwal and have the task of turning around a business that has been at the heart of environmental disputes and corruption investigations in India.

The Church of England famously sold its stake in the company in 2010 amid concerns about the way it was treating tribes in Odisha, India.

Albanese takes over as chief executive from MS Mehta, who is retiring next month.