Shawn D. Williams

Executive Chairman of the Board
Covia Holdings, LLC.
BSEE 1985

Shawn D. Williams earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1985. He is a value creation focused Executive Chairman of the Board for privately held Covia Holdings, formerly public Covia Holdings Corporation (CVIA) and Tilley-Phoenix Group, a SK Capital portfolio company, Independent Board Director for Tetra Technologies, Inc. (TTI) and Kirby Corporation (KEX), with proven success in materially increasing shareholder value in Public and Private Equity companies. Williams is committed to building collaborative, inclusive, and innovative cultures of continuous improvement enabling transformation of business models.

Williams is a member of the Audit and Compensation Committees for Covia Holdings, and Tetra Technologies Inc.  He was CEO of Nexeo Plastics from April 2019 to June of 2020.  From September 2012 to March of 2019, Williams served as Executive Vice President of Nexeo Solutions, a TPG Portfolio Company.  He led a $2 Billion global valued added Plastics distributor with over 800 employees in 60 countries around the world.  Williams significantly created enterprise value leading to a sale of the Plastics Division to One Rock Capital in March of 2019.

Prior to joining Nexeo Solutions, Williams worked 20 years in Industrial and Specialty Material business leadership roles at General Electric Company. He developed a broad prospective of capital allocation for operating high-performance businesses by executing across the dimensions of cultural transformations, strategy, operations, supply chain, technology, safety, sales, product management, purchasing, and M&A.  Shawn’s construct for long term sustainable value creation is based on alignment of culture, strategy, and process with internal and external stakeholders on aspirational goals for the business.

Williams led business globally for two decades in Americas, Europe, and Asia across a broad sector of markets including Agriculture, Automotive, Coatings, Construction, Consumer, Energy, Health Care, Packaging, Personal Care, Polymers, and Retail.

In addition to a BSEE from Purdue, Williams holds an M.B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He is a member of the Purdue University Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Advisory Board.