Rio Tinto Board changes

24 October 2007

The boards of Rio Tinto plc and Rio Tinto Limited are pleased to announce that, following the acquisition of Alcan Inc, Yves Fortier, Paul Tellier and Dick Evans have been appointed as directors with effect from 25 October 2007.

Yves Fortier, currently chairman of the board of Alcan, and Paul Tellier, currently a non- executive director of Alcan, become non executive directors of Rio Tinto.  Yves joins the Nominations Committee and the Committee on Social and Environmental Accountability.  Paul joins the Audit Committee and the Remuneration Committee.

Dick Evans, the current Alcan chief executive officer, becomes an executive director of Rio Tinto and the chief executive of the combined aluminium group, Rio Tinto Alcan, based in Montreal and will report directly to Rio Tinto's chief executive, Tom Albanese.

Commenting on the appointments, Paul Skinner, chairman, said "I am very pleased to welcome Yves, Paul and Dick to the Rio Tinto board.  They will play key roles in providing important continuity during the integration of Alcan and bring valuable new perspectives, particularly in relation to Canada, to our board."

As announced at the Rio Tinto 2007 annual general meetings , Sir Richard Sykes, currently the senior non executive director, will retire at the conclusion of the 2008 annual general meetings.  Andrew Gould, currently chairman of the Audit Committee, will become the senior non executive director on Sir Richard's retirement and will become chairman of the Remuneration Committee.  Sir David Clementi will replace Andrew Gould as chairman of the Audit Committee.  These latter changes will take effect from the conclusion of the 2008 annual general meetings.