The top 50: Geert van de Wouw, managing director, Shell Ventures
Geert van de Wouw has been a vice-president for Anglo-Dutch oil and gas supplier Shell and managing director for its corporate venturing unit, Shell Ventures, for the past 10 years.
Shell Ventures invests in early-stage companies that are developing innovative energy technologies, and it also backs technology spinouts of Shell. The unit focuses on three areas: oil and gas technologies, renewables and information technology.
The unit’s recent investments roles in the series A round for sustainable protein developer Vence and in the venture round for Masabi, a provider of mobile ticketing services. Since the start of 2022, Shell Ventures has also backed Gridpoint, a cleantech firm, shared electric vehicle business Revel and thermal energy storage firm Antora Energy.
Prior to joining Shell Ventures, Van de Wouw served as Shell’s eurozone economic turmoil response lead, managing the economic crisis experienced by the energy supply chain sector in 2011 and 2012.
He had previously led the supplier management efforts for large, enterprise suppliers on behalf of Shell, having joined the group in 2003 to oversee Shell Global Solutions’ business development in the Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States and Africa region.
Before joining Shell, Van de Wouw was regional director for business development at engineering, construction and maintenance services company Fluor Corporation in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
He holds a master’s degree in molecular sciences from University of Wageningen in the Netherlands and received postgraduate education at IMD Business School in Switzerland.
