Fortescue shares were down 5.2 per cent on Friday.

Andrew Forrest, the miner’s executive chairman and Australia’s richest man, said earlier this week that the steady churn of senior executives was a natural part of the process of a company reinventing itself.

“Have you ever seen a massive company in transition before, in deep transition?” he said on Wednesday, before the departures of Morris and Debelle. “Well, I haven’t either, but it’s my responsibility to make one.”

Forrest predicted there would be about 12 C-suite level changes as the iron ore miner chased its target of zero carbon emissions by 2030, while it built another business in clean energy.

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“Some people stay 15 years, some people don’t like it when they get here,” Forrest said. “Completely fine, absolutely normal.”

Hick’s shock departure diverted attention to Fortescue’s full-year financial results when an unexpected $US726 million ($1.1 billion) writedown at the miner’s troubled Iron Bridge magnetite operation dragged net profit down to $US5.5 billion ($8.5 billion) for fiscal 2023.

The billionaire said Fortescue was expected to deliver abnormal results every year, “yet we’re also expected to be completely normal in everything else”.

He dismissed concerns that the loss of senior managers might result in insufficient dissenting voices to challenge his ideas.

“We have a suite of values which really encourages people speaking up,” Forrest said on Wednesday.

“There is no discord with that at all.”

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