Rick Smith

An accountant by profession, Rick’s background includes textiles, packaging, and recently consulting with Private Equity Houses, advising on their M&A activity across Europe and North Africa. Early in his career, he held various MD roles integrating and turning around business. As CFO of Chesapeake, a multi-national packaging company, along with the CEO, he led a significant turnaround of the business, including numerous acquisitions, commercial development, and extensive pension scheme restructuring, leading to the secondary sale to Carlyle in 2013 for £460 million, raising £290 million in the process to support the sale. Subsequently, he was EVP on the Board of Multi Packaging Solutions (“MPS”) responsible for integrating their Asian Operations, Corporate Development, and the innovation group. The MPS board listed the business on the NYSE in 2015 following a successful merger with Chesapeake in a $1.8bn listing.