Rafael Jabur Bittar is VALE’s Technical Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer. He has 20 years of experience in engineering and mining. He joined the company in 2019 when he was appointed to run its Geotechnical Department, where he made some major improvements to its model for managing tailings and dams. He has an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering and Geotechnics from the Mining School at Ouro Preto Federal University (Brazil) and MBAs from Getúlio Vargas Foundation and Dom Cabral Foundation (Brazil). During his career, he has worked in many positions in the areas of operations, projects, consulting, and auditing, in Brazil and other countries. In the last 10 years, he has focused on geotechnics and management of mine tailings. Before coming to Vale, he was the senior global director at Yamana Gold. He is a strong organizational leader with extensive global experience. He is also the author of numerous publications and technical presentations related to tailings disposal and risk management in tailings storage facilities. He is a strategic thinker who can adapt his approach to local challenges while positively engaging and motivating teams to enable cultural change. He has also demonstrated strong communication and change management skills and he is proficient at managing project strategy externally and internally at
various levels of the organization.