Poor Tom Albanese. Only six months after his appointment as chief executive of Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest miner, he finds that his job is already under threat. BHP Bil-liton’s £70 billion takeover approach to Rio would create a global resources giant, but if the deal succeeds there will, almost certainly, be no room within it for the Rio boss.

Mr Albanese says, stoically, that he is not bothered by this possible outcome, but he is fighting the BHP bid like a man who realises that his time at the top could be shorter than he might have hoped.

Last year was a remarkable one for leadership in the mining industry, with Rio, BHP and Anglo American all bringing in new chief executives. With the resources sector booming, becoming the boss of one of these businesses is the corporate equivalent of winning the lottery. The new men are almost guaranteed success - and the vast bonuses that will come with it. No wonder Mr Albanese wants to hold on to his position.

Of the three, the Rio chief had the most impressive start to his tenure. Within two months he had pulled off the $38 billion acquisition of Alcan, of Canada, turning Rio overnight into the world’s largest producer of aluminium. But the glow from that success faded fast and now Mr Albanese finds himself in the middle of the biggest takeover battle of the year as he tries to fend off BHP and its aggressive new boss Marius Kloppers.

“BHP has been a high,” Mr Albanese claims, not entirely convincingly. “It has allowed Rio to present its value case to shareholders and I have done that with enthusiasm. This situation has also allowed me to go back to parts of my company and push the urgency of business improvement.” Of course, his baptism could have been easier. “In the past eight months there have been more events to deal with than a normal new CEO would see,” he said. “I’ve certainly seen a higher level of activity than I expected in my first eight months.”

Mr Albanese, who is originally from New Jersey in the eastern United States, was speaking at a casino in Perth, Western Australia, during a tour of Rio’s iron-ore operations. The trip was part of a strategy that Mr Albanese has put in place to ward off BHP’s unwanted attention. Rio is trying to show shareholders that there is unrealised value within the company and that BHP needs to increase its offer substantially to reflect that.

As BHP is unlikely to improve its offer significantly, the bid could be dead in the water if shareholders agree with Mr Albanese. Unfortunately for Rio, investors usually prefer jam today and the battle remains delicately balanced.

There is no subliminal message in the choice of venue for this interview. Mr Albanese shows no sign of gambling away Rio’s future by bribing investors with short-term gains. Instead, he is focusing on the long-term strength of Rio’s business and is taking every opportunity to show off what the company does - and why it does it better than BHP.

The setting is appropriately brash, therefore, if uncomfortably so. This bragging is a very unRio thing to do. The company, one of the most venerable on the London exchange, has always kept a low profile. Its mantra has been underpromise and overdeliver and Mr Albanese fits this low-key corporate approach perfectly. A geologist and mining engineer by background, he is quiet and considered. He spent nearly ten years at the brutal end of the mining business in Alaska before joining Rio in 1993, since when he has been deployed to calm troubled waters at Kennecott Utah Copper and North, the Australian iron ore company that Rio bought in 2000.

But the current climate requires a more aggressive approach. Mr Albanese has recognised this and launched himself into a campaign to raise the company’s profile and rebuff BHP. If this does not seem to come instinctively, nobody can fault his commitment to the cause. He has hit the road to talk to investors worldwide, hammering home his message that the BHP offer is bad. The mining engineer has been forced to become a salesman, and a salesmen trying to sell that hardest of ideas: the status quo.

“The best CEOs take on the ability to manage and develop a range of skills that are not necessarily the ones they start out with,” Mr Albanese admits. His ability to learn these new skills may determine the future of the entire resources sector.

Curriculum vitae

Born September 9, 1957, New Jersey

Education BSc in mineral economics, MSc mining engineering, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Career 1981-83, junior engineer on an Alaskan gold project that is acquired by Nerco; 1989-93, chief operating officer of Nerco, which is bought by Rio Tinto; 1995-98, group exploration officer, Rio Tinto, London; 1998-2000, vice-president, Kennecott Utah Copper; 2000-01, managing director, North Iron Ore; 2004-06, chief executive, copper and exploration

Family Married to Mary, two children