Everett Smith III, Managing Partner, co-founded NewWorld in June 2009. Before NewWorld, he was a Managing Director at New Energy Capital, a private equity firm with investments in the energy efficiency, renewable electricity, and renewable fuels sectors in the United States. He also served as a Managing Director in the Clean-Tech Group at VantagePoint Venture Partners, New Energy Capital’s parent company.
Earlier, Mr. Smith served in a variety of senior positions at GE Capital over a period of 15 years, including Executive Vice President in the GE Structured Finance Group (SFG), the unit then responsible for GE Capital’s energy and infrastructure investment activities. Among his roles, he led business development, focusing on business and asset acquisitions and new business platforms, which included integrating acquired business units and collaborating with business leaders to set and achieve ambitious financial targets.
Before heading business development, Mr. Smith headed SFG International, with responsibility for building a $1.5 billion private equity portfolio in the energy, infrastructure, transportation, and telecommunications sectors. During this time, he built SFG International into an 80-member unit with personnel in Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, New Delhi, London, Mexico City, Sao Paolo, and Stamford. He was involved in the establishment of numerous joint-ventures, including the $1.2 billion AIG-GE Capital Latin America Infrastructure Fund where he was a member of the Investment Committee while the Fund made energy and infrastructure investments. In prior years, Mr. Smith established, built and led SFG’s Asian investment activities, closing multiple energy-related private equity investments. Mr. Smith joined GE Capital Services in 1989 with responsibility for providing capital for corporate and project finance transactions for U.S. energy companies. During this time, he co-led and financed a number of cogeneration facilities, including a joint venture with Pacific Gas & Electric and Bechtel, GE Capital’s largest private equity investments in the power sector at that time.
Prior to joining GE Capital, Mr. Smith spent 11 years at Chemical Bank where he served as Vice President in the Energy & Minerals Group, which focused on corporate and project finance and financing for the independent oil and gas industry. Following GE, he was a Partner at Coller Capital, a private equity secondary investment firm.
Mr. Smith graduated from Vassar College with a BA in Economics and holds an MBA from the University of Houston.