The changes, effective immediately, include the reorganization of its executive leadership team, with former North American business unit president Donald Gallagher the new executive vice-president, president of the Global Commercial division.

Gallagher now will manage all commercial responsibility worldwide for Cliffs' businesses, including a newly created global strategic marketing function and the creation of a global transportation and logistics function.

While overseeing strategic customer alignment for coal and iron ore sales, Gallagher will also manage emerging products such as ferroalloys, iron technologies and renewaFUEL, and factors such as pricing, partnerships and leadership of the company’s sales teams.

Duncan Price, formerly Cliffs’ Asia Pacific Iron Ore business unit senior vice-president and managing director, will now sit in the seat of executive vice-president, president for global operations. He will have sole operating responsibility for all minerals and other products the company produces.

His breadth of responsibility will include all coal and iron ore operations in Cliffs’ global portfolio within North America, the Asia-Pacific region and Brazil, and also emerging operating assets and development projects for iron ore, ferrochrome, alternative iron technologies and renewaFUEL.

Price will also be in a leadership role for safety, capital projects, cost management and continuous improvement.

Finally, Clifford Smith has been named senior vice-president, global business development. He will have a hand in business development efforts globally, including the identification and evaluation of potential strategic transactions and valuation, due diligence and integration efforts.

Smith will also provide executive leadership for Cliffs' portfolio of equity investments in non-controlled assets, including the Sonoma coal project in Australia and the Amapa iron ore project in Brazil.

"As illustrated by our recently announced agreement to acquire Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines, Cliffs is on an accelerated growth trajectory … [having] reached a level of global scale that requires us to manage the business in a more progressive and pragmatic manner, as well as in a way that prepares our next generation of leaders,” Cliffs chairman, president and chief executive Joseph Carrabba said.

“As our customers and suppliers continue to grow, there is a need for greater collaboration between our North American and Asia-Pacific business units in terms of customer and supplier negotiations, marketing analysis and product transportation and logistics. There is also the opportunity to enhance the speed of best practices adoption across Cliffs' global portfolio of operating assets.”

Carrabba noted that the restructuring took Cliffs’ management structure away from a regional design into truly integrated global management.

"Each of the executives on the [executive leadership team] understands we are operating in a global environment that requires us to think and act on a global basis – approaching every aspect of the business this way including pricing, sourcing and how we operate our portfolio of assets," he said.