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 Roger Agnelli, a former banking executive who helped turn the Brazilian company Vale into a global mining giant, died on Saturday when his private plane crashed in São Paulo, Brazil. He was 56. 
 
 Mr. Agnelli, his wife Andrea and their children, Ana Carolina and João, were en route to a wedding in Rio de Janeiro when the Comp Air 9 turboprop monoplane slammed into two homes just minutes after taking off, killing all seven people aboard, according to Reuters and a statement released by Vale. 
 
 The others on the plane were the pilot and the spouses of the Agnellis’ children. The company statement did not indicate the cause of the crash. 
 
 Mr. Agnelli took over as president and chief executive of Vale in 2001 after nearly 19 years at one of the country’s largest banks, Banco Bradesco, which is a major shareholder in Vale. The company was at the end of a process of privatization that had begun in 1997, though the government retained a stake in the company. 
 
 Under Mr. Agnelli, Vale grew into one of Latin America’s biggest companies: the second-largest mining company in the world at the time, and the largest producer of iron ore. 
 
 Known by some as the “Iron Man,” Mr. Agnelli was a tough negotiator and a bold executive who expanded the company’s reach into markets in Asia, particularly China. 
 
 In 2006, he presided over the company’s $18 billion purchase of Inco, a Canadian nickel producer, the largest acquisition that had ever been made by a Latin American company, Vale said. 
 
 Seven years into his tenure, the company’s market value had increased from $8 billion to $150 billion, according to the book “Global Latinas: Latin America’s Emerging Multinationals” by Lourdes S. Casanova. 
 
 In 2013, Mr. Agnelli was named to the No. 4 spot on Harvard Business Review’s list of the best performing chief executives in the world, behind Steve Jobs of Apple, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Yun Jong-yong of Samsung. 
 
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 According to Ms. Casanova, Mr. Agnelli “challenged the traditional notion that mines are best run in enclaves separate from the local community,” citing the construction of a model mine in 2004 in the Brazilian state of Paraná. 
 
 “We brought in water and sewage treatment, a school, a police station and technical training,” Mr. Agnelli said in an interview quoted in the book. “As modern miners we can’t just be technicians. We need to listen to the community and be less arrogant.” 
 
 Mr. Agnelli was ousted in 2011 after friction with the Brazilian government, which pushed for the company to invest more in the country’s workers and industries. 
 
 The company had seen its value double in the previous five years, but Mr. Agnelli angered government officials by laying off more than 1,000 workers and slashing investments in Brazil. 
 
 Mr. Agnelli was born on May 3, 1959, in São Paulo. 
 
 In recent years, he had worked on his own mining venture, AGN Participações. 
 
 Information on survivors was not immediately available. 

 SAO PAULO(Reuters) - Roger Agnelli, the Brazilian banker who turned Vale SA VALE5.SA into the world’s No. 1 iron ore producer, died on Saturday in a plane crash. He was 56. 
 
 Former Vale CEO Roger Agnelli poses for a photograph during an interview with Reuters in London in this April 19, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett/Files 
 
 Agnelli, his wife and two children were among seven killed when his Comp Air 9 turboprop monoplane slammed into two homes around 3:20 p.m. local time (1820 GMT), minutes after taking off from an airport in northern São Paulo, authorities said. 
 
 “We have lost a Brazilian of extraordinary entrepreneurial vision,” President Dilma Rousseff said in a statement Sunday, adding that Agnelli had devoted his career to big Brazilian companies and shown commitment to the development of his country. 
 
 Sources said Agnelli was traveling to a wedding ceremony in Rio de Janeiro with his wife Andréia, son João, daughter Anna Carolina, and their two spouses. The weather was clear at the time of the crash. 
 
 In a statement, Vale said it learned of Agnelli´s death with “immense sadness” and said his 10-year tenure at the company had intensified its global expansion and transformation into a major global player. 
 
 Known for his discipline and feisty nature, Agnelli clinched the top job at Vale in July 2001 after 19 years as a corporate and investment banker with Banco Bradesco SA (BBDC4.SA), a major Vale shareholder. 
 
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 He instilled a culture of meritocracy that helped make Vale Brazil’s No. 1 exporter. To friends and foes, the key to Agnelli’s success was accurately predicting the rise of China as a major minerals consumer, a crucial wager in turning Vale, a former bloated state-controlled firm, into a global powerhouse. 
 
 “He was a visionary that corporate Brazil will miss badly,” said Lawrence Pih, who for decades ran flour mill Grupo Pacífico SA and sat on the board at the São Paulo Federation of Industries with Agnelli. 
 
 In a Harvard Business Review’s ranking of the world’s best-performing chief executive officers published in February 2013, Agnelli came fourth, only behind Apple Inc’s Steve Jobs, Amazon.com Inc’s Jeff Bezos and Samsung Group’s Yun Jong-Yong. He was the top mining CEO in the 100-executive ranking. 
 
 Agnelli earned the spot in the Harvard ranking after racking up a consolidated return of 934 percent during his tenure at Vale, whose market value more than doubled in the period. 
 
 KNACK FOR DEALS 
 
 Born on May 3, 1959 to a middle-class family in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, Roger Agnelli studied economics at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in his hometown. 
 
 He began his career at Bradesco’s corporate finance and investment banking division. His knack for engineering complex deals earned him praise from his bosses, who turned him into Bradesco’s youngest senior vice president at the age of 29. 
 
 At Vale, he implemented a turnaround based on tough goals. During his stint, revenues rose 13-fold and capital spending soared more than 20-fold. 
 
 “I get paid to produce results, and the results are there, aren’t they?” Agnelli told Valor Econômico newspaper in an interview in 2010. 
 
 However, running Vale as a multinational put him on a collision course with Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party, which wanted Vale to shift from exporting raw minerals to more value-added products such as steel and fertilizers to create more jobs. 
 
 The government has influence in the company through indirect stakes held by state pension funds. 
 
 Agnelli clashed with former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for firing 2,000 workers in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. Months later, he accused members of Lula’s left-leaning party of trying to install loyalists at Vale and seek a bigger say in key decisions. 
 
 His brash style upset clients in Europe and Japan, as well as regional governments and politicians that were crucial for a company that depended on government permits, according to former employees who asked not to be named. 
 
 Lula’s successor, Rousseff, stepped up pressure on Agnelli and succeeded in pushing him out in May 2011, just months after she took office. 
 
 Rousseff and Lula, who she named last week as her chief of staff, are facing a growing corruption probe at state firms. Vale has not been named in the probe nor is it under investigation. 
 
 Following his departure from Vale, Agnelli founded AGN Participações Ltda and teamed up with Grupo BTG Pactual SA in a mining joint venture. 

 Authorities said that Roger Agnelli, the Brazilian banker who turned Vale SA into the world's leading iron ore producer, was killed in a Saturday crash that also killed his wife, two children, their spouses and the pilot. A woman on the ground was also reportedly injured. 
 
 Authorities gave no reason why Agnelli's Comp Air 9 turboprop airplane slammed into two houses around 3:20 p.m. local time (1820 UTC) Saturday shortly after takeoff from Campo de Marte airport in northern São Paulo. 
 
 Media reports said 56-year-old Agnelli was traveling to a wedding ceremony in Rio de Janeiro in clear weather. 
 
 Known as a strong personality, he reinforced a culture of meritocracy that helped make the company Brazil's top exporter - transforming it from a relatively inefficient state enterprise to a lean corporate powerhouse. 
 
 "I get paid to produce results, and the results are there, aren't they?" Agnelli told Valor Econômico newspaper in an interview in 2010. 
 
 That won him the respect of other business leaders. 
 
 "He was a visionary that corporate Brazil will miss badly," said Lawrence Pih, former chief of the flour mill Grupo Pacífico SA, who sat on the board at the São Paulo Federation of Industries with Agnelli. 
 
 Clashed with political leaders 
 
 Roger Agnelli clinched Vale's top job in July 2001 after 19 years as an investment banker with Banco Bradesco SA, one of Vale's controlling shareholders. 
 
 But his cut throat instincts also earned him powerful detractors. His legendary brash style irked many local officials, labor leaders and powerful national leaders. 
 
 He resisted Brazil's ruling Workers' Party which wanted Vale to shift from exporting raw minerals to more value-added products such as steel and fertilizers to stimulate employment. 
 
 Agnelli clashed with former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for firing 2,000 workers in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. Months later, he accused members of Lula's left-leaning party of trying to install loyalists at Vale and seek a bigger say in key decisions. 
 
 Lula's successor, Dilma Rousseff, stepped up pressure on Agnelli and suceeded in pushing him out in May 2011, just months after she took office. 
 
 Following his departure from Vale, Agnelli founded AGN Participações Ltda and teamed up with Grupo BTG Pactual SA in a joint mining venture. 
 
 jar/bw (Reuters, AP, dpa)
– "We have lost a Brazilian of extraordinary entrepreneurial vision," Dilma Rousseff, the country's president, said in a statement Sunday, per Reuters. Her mournful message announced the death of 56-year-old banker Roger Agnelli, who turned a Brazil mining company into the world's largest iron-ore producer and made it a major world player. The turboprop monoplane carrying Agnelli—who was traveling from Sao Paulo to a wedding in Rio with his wife, two grown kids, and their spouses—crashed into two homes shortly after an afternoon takeoff in clear weather, killing all six plus the pilot. Deutsche Welle reports a woman on the ground was also injured. Vale SA, the company Agnelli helped propel to the top of its game, said in its own statement that it was filled with "immense sadness." Nicknamed "Iron Man," Agnelli—who took over Vale's helm in 2001 after spending most of his career in banking—was renowned for his tough negotiations, what Deutsche Welle calls "cutthroat instincts," and for bringing Vale into Asian markets, particularly China, the New York Times reports. Under his watch, he propelled Vale to become the second largest mining company on Earth, and the largest iron-ore producer—increasing the company's value from $8 billion to a staggering $150 billion in just seven years, per a book on Latin America's "emerging multinationals." He had even catapulted onto a 2013 Harvard Business Review list of the best-performing CEOs in the world, appearing in the top five alongside the likes of Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos. But Agnelli clashed with then President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva over the number of workers Agnelli had fired during the Great Recession, and things didn't get better under Rousseff, who ultimately forced Agnelli out of Vale in 2011. (This in the midst of a crazy political crisis in Brazil.)