For the first time in 50 years, a woman is to lead one of Codelco’s divisions

Chile’s state-owned mining company Codelco, the world’s biggest copper producer, has named  Claudia Cabrera Correa as the first female general manager of the Gabriela Mistral division, located in the northern region of Antofagasta.

The open-pit operation has been active since 2008 and its most recent data show that it produced 100,908 tonnes of fine copper in 2021.

Cabrera Correa is set to start running the operation on June 1, 2023. By accepting the new role, she becomes the first woman to lead any of Codelco’s divisions.  

The executive is a chemical civil engineer from the University of Concepción. She also has a graduate degree in management and an MBA in mining management from the University of Chile.

Her professional career started 24 years ago at Codelco’s Chuquicamata Division, where she climbed the corporate ladder until becoming head of the process engineering superintendence unit. In 2007, she joined Codelco’s Northern Division, where she became the first woman in Chuquicamata to reach the position of crushing and leaching superintendent in the extraction and leaching department, which she left in 2012 to join the VP of mining resources and development management at Codelco’s headquarters, where she played a number of different roles.

In 2018, Cabrera Correa left the concentration and hydro processes department and was hired by BHP’s Minera Escondida, where she worked as process planning and control manager. In 2021, she moved to Antofagasta Minerals, where she became the corporate security risk manager.

In her return to state miner, the engineer will join the vice presidents of people management, Mary Carmen Llano, and corporate affairs and sustainability, Nicole Porcile, as well as the division’s new legal advisor, Macarena Vargas. Together, the three women will lead the top management executive office with the greatest diversity in Codelco’s 51 years.