FLS appoints Toni Laaksonen as CEO: service-led focus for mine project teams
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

First reported on International Mining – News
30 Second Briefing
FLSmidth has appointed Toni Laaksonen as CEO with immediate effect, elevating him from his role as Service Business Line President, which he assumed in June 2025. He replaces Mikko Keto, who notified the Board in November 2025 of his decision to leave for an external opportunity. The move places a service-focused leader in charge of the OEM at a time when miners are prioritising brownfield optimisation, aftermarket support and performance-based service contracts for grinding, flotation and digital process equipment.
Technical Brief
- CEO appointment follows a “comprehensive” selection process run by FLSmidth’s Board of Directors.
- Service-line background at CEO level suggests stronger emphasis on lifecycle support for installed grinding and flotation assets.
- Shift is likely to influence contract structures towards availability or throughput-linked service models for brownfield plants.
- OEM–operator interfaces for digital process equipment (control, monitoring, optimisation) may move further towards long-term performance partnerships.
Our Take
FLSmidth features in several late-2025 project pieces in our database, including core comminution supply for a South American copper concentrator and a full flowsheet package for Azumah’s Black Volta gold project in Ghana, so a CEO change in 2025 lands while the order book is being reshaped around large greenfield builds.
The sale of FLSmidth’s Overland Conveyor Products Group to Fluor’s Virta Inc. in December 2025 signals a portfolio pruning towards higher-value process and service offerings, which aligns with elevating a recent Service Business Line President like Toni Laaksonen to the top role.
FLSmidth’s recent work on Vale’s S11D iron ore operation in Brazil, alongside copper and gold projects, underlines that the incoming CEO inherits a business with exposure to multiple bulk and base-metal project cycles rather than being tied to a single commodity upswing.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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