For Cynthia Carroll the road to becoming the FTSE’s most powerful woman chief executive started with a pre-dawn hike through the snow in Davos, Switzerland.

Mrs Carroll, the president of Alcan’s primary metals division, was attending a breakfast seminar as part of the World Economic Forum’s annual get-together of the great and good in January this year.

The American-born geologist spotted a man sitting alone waiting for the seminar to start and she went over to introduce herself.

Her breakfast companion was Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, the chairman of Anglo American, and yesterday Sir Mark became Mrs Carroll’s boss.

Mrs Carroll, 49, has been appointed chief executive of the third-largest mining company in the world — and, with a market capitalisation of £36 billion, one of the largest companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange.

She is only the third woman chief executive in the FTSE 100, along with Marjorie Scardino, of Pearson, and Dorothy Thomson, of Drax.

Mrs Carroll is also the first non-South African to run Anglo and the first non-Anglo employee to take the top job.

At that first meeting in Davos, Mrs Carroll said that there was no discussion about whether she would one day be joining Sir Mark at Anglo.

She told The Times: “I was so impressed with him when we met in Davos. I saw him sitting alone and I went over to him and introduced myself. I didn’t know who he was and I never dreamt that I would end up working with him.”

As the seminar progressed the two fell into conversation about South Africa and the oil industry.

They both have a background in petroleum geology and Mrs Carroll was in the process of setting up an alumina refinery in South Africa — Anglo’s backyard.

The next time the pair met it was at an interview arranged by the headhunter Spencer Stuart.

Tony Trahar, Anglo American’s present chief executive, announced this year that he would be resigning at the next annual meeting, in April 2007, and the scouts have spent the past six months looking for a replacement.

Sir Mark said yesterday that the company had been looking for someone capable of forcing through wide-ranging changes at the mining giant.

The company also needed someone with extensive international experience, with an ability to deal with foreign governments and someone who had a track record of excellence in running big operations.

Sir Mark said: “Cynthia has all the criteria we were looking for. She also has the basic chief executive fundamentals of leadership and vision.”

Mrs Carroll has obviously also made an impact at a personal level, with Sir Mark describing her as having “an immediate positive affect” on people.

She will certainly need all her leadership skills and charm when she takes the helm from Mr Trahar on March 1 next year.

Anglo American is in the process of restructuring its disparate divisions by divesting non-core units.

This lack of focus has made Anglo the subject of takeover speculation for months, and one of Mrs Carroll’s challenges will be to convince shareholders that they should trust her and leave Anglo independent.

Analysts believe that a potential bid for Anglo could come next year from Rio Tinto, Xstrata or Rusal, so Mrs Carroll will have to work fast to convince the City that she has what it takes to redefine the troubled mining giant.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive