Nick Smith

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT NICK SMITH

Driven by a fascination for business and inspired by people, I am passionate about leading organizations to build successful products, growth and value together with their stakeholders. Nowadays growth and value for stakeholders must mean developing more sustainable ways of satisfying societal and consumer needs. Possessed of clear vision, energy and appetite for change, integrity and a genuine warmth for people, I have achieved outstanding results together with inspiring people in all regions of the world, in senior commercial roles in variety of different industries and business challenges. I always focus on customer needs, fundamental business drivers and team motivation and development as the route to excellent financial performance.Over a long international tenure at Covestro I led regional and global businesses in the coatings resins sector, serving many industry verticals. During this time I spent almost ten years living and working in Asia and developed deep insights into the region, both in terms of business and humanity. As director for Covestro’s global textile coatings business, based out of China, I built and led a global multidisciplinary team of remarkable people that helped the textiles industry adopt sustainable chemistry while creating higher performing consumer products. Later in a corporate strategy function, I continued to gain valuable experience in sustainability in a leadership role in the company’s circular economy program.After a career decision to dedicate my energies to early-stage companies in sustainable chemistry, I worked at Circa Group, a company with a proprietary process to convert non-food biomass into advanced bio-based chemicals.At the end of 2023 I have joined Viridi. We have developed and patented a catalyst technology that transforms CO2 into high value chemicals, allowing the chemical industry – one of the major emitters of CO2 to use this greenhouse gas to actually produce its own product, avoiding those emissions and reducing petrochemical requirement by up to 50%, making serious steps towards carbon neutrality. In my role as Commercial Director, I am working with the world’s biggest chemical companies to commercialize this new technology that will enable a new paradigm in chemical manufacturing that will go on to improve the sustainability of materials used in applications as diverse as personal care, clothing, mobility and infrastructure.Specialties: Business strategy, international business, new business development, Purpose driven, empathetic leadership, integrity, sustainability