Jakob joined Rio Tinto in September 2018 as Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer. He was appointed as Chief Executive from 1 January 2021. He has worked globally in senior finance roles for over 20 years.

Jakob worked 19 years for Shell across Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. His last role was VP Finance for Asia Pacific, based in Singapore. During his time at Shell, Jakob also held the position of chief internal auditor.

In 2008, Jakob moved back to his native Denmark as Group CFO of the global facility service provider ISS, which operates in 50 countries with in total around 450,000 employees.

From 2012 until 2018, Jakob worked for A.P. Moller-Maersk, the worlds largest shipping company with an annual turnover of US$50bn. Initially, Jakob worked as Chief Strategy, Finance and Transformation Officer for Maersk Line (USD 30 bn turnover) and later held the same role for the broader Maersk Group. As a member of the management board, key responsibilities included, Strategy, Digitisation, IT, Legal and the Transformation and Shared Services Centres.

From 2006 until 2008, Jakob served as a non-executive director of Woodside Petroleum.

From 2009 to 2016, Jakob served as a non-executive director of Statoil (now Equinor), the last six years as Chairman of the Audit Committee.