Former Vale SA mining CEO Roger Agnelli was killed in a plane crash in Brazil, March 19.
Reuters reported Agnelli, 56, his wife and two children were among seven killed when his turboprop monoplane slammed into two homes around 3:20 p.m. local time, minutes after taking off from an airport in northern São Paulo.
"We have lost a Brazilian of extraordinary entrepreneurial vision," President Dilma Rousseff said in a statement, adding that Agnelli had devoted his career to big Brazilian companies and shown commitment to the development of his country.
In a statement, Vale said it learned of Agnelli´s death with "immense sadness" and said his 10-year tenure at the company had intensified its global expansion and transformation into a major global player.
Agnelli secured the top job at Vale in 2001 after 19 years as a corporate and investment banker.
The key to his success was accurately predicting the rise of China as a major minerals consumer and through a culture of meritocracy turned Vale, a bloated state-controlled firm into Brazil’s No. 1 exporter.
"He was a visionary that corporate Brazil will miss badly," said Lawrence Pih, who sat on the board at the São Paulo Federation of Industries with Agnelli.
In a Harvard Business Review's ranking of the world's best-performing chief executive officers in 2013, Agnelli finished fourth, behind Apple’s Steve Jobs, Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos and Samsung Group's Yun Jong-Yong. He was the top mining CEO in the 100-executive ranking.
His brash style clashed with federal politicians in Brazil and he was pushed out of office of the state-owned company in 2011.
Following his departure from Vale, Agnelli founded AGN Participações Ltda and teamed up with Grupo BTG Pactual SA in a mining joint venture.