By Guillermo Parra-Bernal and Tatiana Bautzer

SAO PAULO, March 20(Reuters) – Roger Agnelli, the Brazilian banker who turned Vale SA into the world’s No. 1 iron ore producer, died on Saturday in a airplane crash. He was 56.

Agnelli, his spouse and two youngsters have been amongst seven killed when his Comp Air 9 turboprop monoplane slammed into two houses round 3:20 p.m. native time (1820 GMT), minutes after taking off from an airport in northern São Paulo, authorities mentioned.

“We have lost a Brazilian of extraordinary entrepreneurial vision,” President Dilma Rousseff mentioned in an announcement Sunday, including that Agnelli had devoted his profession to massive Brazilian firms and proven dedication to the event of his nation.

Sources mentioned Agnelli was touring to a marriage ceremony in Rio de Janeiro along with his spouse Andréia, son João, daughter Anna Carolina, and their two spouses. The climate was clear on the time of the crash.

In an announcement, Vale mentioned it discovered of Agnellis dying with “immense sadness” and mentioned his 10-year tenure on the firm had intensified its world growth and transformation into a significant world participant.

Known for his self-discipline and feisty nature, Agnelli clinched the highest job at Vale in July 2001 after 19 years as a company and funding banker with Banco Bradesco SA, a significant Vale shareholder.

He instilled a tradition of meritocracy that helped make Vale Brazil’s No. 1 exporter. To associates and foes, the important thing to Agnelli’s success was precisely predicting the rise of China as a significant minerals shopper, a vital wager in turning Vale, a former bloated state-controlled agency, into a worldwide powerhouse.

“He was a visionary that corporate Brazil will miss badly,” mentioned Lawrence Pih, who for many years ran flour mill Grupo Pacífico SA and sat on the board on the São Paulo Federation of Industries with Agnelli.

In a Harvard Business Review’s rating of the world’s best-performing chief government officers printed in February 2013, Agnelli got here fourth, solely behind Apple Inc’s Steve Jobs, Amazon.com Inc’s Jeff Bezos and Samsung Group’s Yun Jong-Yong. He was the highest mining CEO within the 100-executive rating.

Agnelli earned the spot within the Harvard rating after racking up a consolidated return of 934 % throughout his tenure at Vale, whose market worth greater than doubled within the interval.

KNACK FOR DEALS

Born on May 3, 1959 to a middle-class household in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest metropolis, Roger Agnelli studied economics at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in his hometown.

He started his profession at Bradesco’s company finance and funding banking division. His knack for engineering complicated offers earned him reward from his bosses, who turned him into Bradesco’s youngest senior vp on the age of 29.

At Vale, he applied a turnaround based mostly on robust targets. During his stint, revenues rose 13-fold and capital spending soared greater than 20-fold.

“I get paid to produce results, and the results are there, aren’t they?” Agnelli informed Valor Econômico newspaper in an interview in 2010.

However, operating Vale as a multinational put him on a collision course with Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party, which wished Vale to shift from exporting uncooked minerals to extra value-added merchandise similar to metal and fertilizers to create extra jobs.

The authorities has affect within the firm by way of oblique stakes held by state pension funds.

Agnelli clashed with former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for firing 2,000 employees within the wake of the worldwide monetary disaster of 2008. Months later, he accused members of Lula’s left-leaning celebration of making an attempt to put in loyalists at Vale and search an even bigger say in key choices.

His brash type upset shoppers in Europe and Japan, in addition to regional governments and politicians that have been essential for an organization that trusted authorities permits, in response to former workers who requested to not be named.

Lula’s successor, Rousseff, stepped up stress on Agnelli and succeeded in pushing him out in May 2011, simply months after she took workplace.

Rousseff and Lula, who she named final week as her chief of employees, are dealing with a rising corruption probe at state companies. Vale has not been named within the probe neither is it beneath investigation.

Following his departure from Vale, Agnelli based AGN Participações Ltda and teamed up with Grupo BTG Pactual SA in a mining three way partnership. (Editing by Daniel Flynn, Nick Zieminski and Mary Milliken)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016.