Prior to joining Rio Tinto, Jakob was the Chief Strategy, Finance and Transformation Officer for the Maersk Group, with oversight of the Group’s strategy, digitisation, IT, legal as well as the transformation and shared services functions. He also served as Group CFO of the global facility service provider ISS. Prior to this, Jakob worked for 19 years for Shell across Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific, including as Vice President, Finance for Asia-Pacific, and earlier, as chief internal auditor. 

From 2009-16, Jakob served as a non-executive director of Statoil (now Equinor), including the last six years of his tenure as Chairman of the Audit Committee. Between 2006-08, Jakob was also a non-executive director of Woodside Petroleum.