Superintendent – Maintenance Learning & Development

• Be part of the world's leading mining organization
• Champion safety, innovation, and operational excellence
• Lead strategic initiatives in a dynamic, technical environment – Salt Lake City, Utah

We’re Finding Better Ways™ to provide materials the world needs, now and in the future. Our values of care, courage and curiosity guide how we work and how we treat each other.

About the Role

As a Superintendent – Maintenance Learning & Development, you will provide strategic and operational leadership for the development of maintenance capability across the organization. This role is accountable for establishing and sustaining a high-performing learning and development system that enables maintenance teams to work safely, reliably, and productively while building the capabilities required for the future of the operation.

Leading a multidisciplinary Learning & Development function, you will partner closely with Maintenance leadership, frontline supervisors, subject matter experts, technical teams, and site stakeholders to identify capability requirements and translate operational priorities into effective learning strategies.

The role will move beyond training delivery to establish a performance-driven capability system—ensuring people are appropriately trained, assessed, qualified, and continuously developed to perform their roles to the required standard.

You will provide strong leadership across the maintenance learning portfolio, establishing clear standards, governance, accountability, and performance expectations while driving consistency across maintenance areas. Success in this role will be measured through improvements in workforce capability, safety, reliability, productivity, and operational performance.

Key Responsibilities

Reporting to the Manager – Learning & Development, you will:

• Leading the Maintenance Learning & Development function, setting priorities, standards and expectations for the team
• Developing and managing the Maintenance capability strategy, including training needs analysis and workforce capability requirements
• Managing role-based competency, qualification and learning pathways to ensure employees are capable and ready to perform their roles safely and effectively
• Managing the onboarding, technical training, refresher training and leadership development programs across Maintenance
• Continuously improving the approach to competency, capability and learning across the Maintenance organization
• Managing, leading and developing the Maintenance L&D team, building a culture of accountability and high performance
• Building strong partnerships with Maintenance leaders, frontline teams, technical specialists and key site stakeholders to align learning with operational needs
• Leading workforce capability planning to support changes in equipment, technology, processes, projects and future maintenance requirements
• Delivering Learning & Development improvement initiatives that strengthen safety, capability, reliability and operational performance

What You’ll Bring

To be successful in this role, you will demonstrate:

• Proven leadership experience in Learning & Development, maintenance, operations, technical training, or another complex industrial environment.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams and influence senior operational leaders in a large, technically complex organization.
• Strong understanding of maintenance operations, workforce capability, competency management, and the relationship between people capability and asset performance.
• Experience developing and implementing strategic learning, competency, or workforce capability programs across frontline and technical workforces.
• Demonstrated ability to identify capability gaps and translate operational requirements into practical, measurable development strategies.
• Strong understanding of training governance, compliance, competency assurance, and learning management systems.
• Experience working with frontline supervisors, superintendents, technical specialists, and subject matter experts to establish and sustain role-based capability requirements.
• Strong commercial and analytical capability, with the ability to connect L&D investment to measurable operational outcomes.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence across all levels of an organization.
• A strong continuous improvement mindset and demonstrated ability to lead organizational change.
• Commitment to safety, operational excellence, workforce development, and building a high-performance culture.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in mining, heavy industry, manufacturing, processing, or another safety-critical operational environment.
• Maintenance or technical background with experience in asset-intensive operations.
• Experience leading Learning & Development or technical capability functions supporting large frontline workforces.
• Experience developing competency frameworks, qualification systems, learning pathways, or technical training programs.
• Experience with Learning Management Systems and workforce capability analytics.
• Experience leading transformational or organizational change initiatives.
• Relevant tertiary qualifications in Learning & Development, Adult Education, Training, Operations, Engineering, Maintenance, Business, or a related discipline.

What we offer  

Here is just a glimpse of our industry leading rewards package: 

• A safety-focused and inclusive working environment
• A competitive salary package with annual cash incentive awards (STIP) for eligible employees
• Career development & education assistance to further your ambitions
• Access to top tier family-friendly health and medical programs
• Excellent retirement plan including 6% defined company contribution
• Generous 401k matching program 
• A comprehensive leave policy that covers all moments that matter in life (vacation/annual, paid parental leave, short term sick leave, paid holidays)
• Ongoing individual wellbeing support for you and your family for personal and professional matters
• Generous Rio Tinto employee share program 

Where you’ll be working 

Our Kennecott mine is a world-class, fully integrated copper mining operation, including a concentrator, smelter and refinery, located just outside Salt Lake City, Utah, in the United States. We produce copper, precious metals including gold and silver, molybdenum and sulfuric acid. Kennecott has been mining and processing minerals from the rich ore body of the Bingham Canyon Mine since 1903 and is one of the top producing mines in the world, comprising approximately 11 percent of U.S. annual copper production.

About Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto is a leading global mining and materials company. We operate in 35 countries where we produce iron ore, copper, aluminium, critical minerals, and other materials needed for the global energy transition and for people, communities, and nations to thrive.

We have been mining for 150 years and operate with knowledge built up across generations and continents. Our purpose is finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs – striving for innovation and continuous improvement to produce materials with low emissions and to the right environmental, social and governance standards. But we can’t do it on our own, so we’re focused on creating partnerships to solve problems, create win-win situations and meet opportunities.

 

Respect and Inclusion

Rio Tinto is committed to equal employment opportunity. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, sex, age, religion, national origin, disability, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

We are committed to an inclusive environment where people feel safe, respected and valued. We want our people to feel that all voices are heard and that a variety of perspectives are not only welcome but are essential to our success. We treat all our people fairly and with dignity.

Rio Tinto participates in E- Verify to confirm work authorization. Please visit http://www.ucis.gov/ for more information.