Anglo American’s annual shareholder meeting next week will mark the end of an era as chief executive Mark Cutifani steps down after almost a decade at the top of one of the world’s biggest mining groups. None of this was obvious when the former engineer took charge in 2013, and much less so in late 2015, when a brutal downturn in commodity markets brought the debt-laden company, which owns De Beers and is a major producer of copper, iron ore and platinum, to the brink of collapse. “I tried to use the urgency of what was going on and turn it into a real ambition for us, which is what I think we have done,” Cutifani said in an interview.