Justin Smith is head of the Business Development Unit at WWF South Africa, overseeing business partnerships with close to 90 companies, marketing, fundraising, and sustainable finance activities for the organisation, as well as having responsibility for the WWF Nedbank Green Trust and Table Mountain Fund.
Justin was previously employed at Woolworths Holdings, leading the Good Business Journey (Sustainability Programme) for close to a decade – responsible for the strategy, structure and integration across the business to deliver it’s over 200 targets in transformation, social development, environmental issues and climate change across its African and Australasian businesses.
Prior to this Justin was head of Governance and Sustainability at Nedbank Group, an associate in Edward Nathan and Friedland (Pty) Ltd Environmental Law and Sustainability Services department; and a risk manager at Standard Bank Group Risk Management.
Justin is previous Co-chair of United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiatives Africa, a member of the National Business Initiative Western Cape Board, a past Stakeholder Council member of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Green Building Council Board member, and Steering Committee member of the UN CEO Water Mandate as well as a trustee of the Table Mountain Fund.
Justin holds a B Comm Law (cum Laude); LLB degree (cum Laude); B Comm Honours in Financial Management (cum Laude) (All University of Pretoria) and LLM (University of South Africa (UNISA) – Environmental law, International Economic Law, and International law.
Justin has over 20 years’ experience across the corporate and NGO sectors, focusing on developing partnerships and innovative solutions for sustainability challengess