Yako Wijnands is the Vice President – Operations of NEOM Green Hydrogen Company, the world’s largest producer of green hydrogen at scale. Yako assumed his responsibilities as VP Operations in January 2022, bringing with him over 30 years’ global operations leadership experience in the industrial gases and energy industries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. He is a strategic, influential, and inspiring leader with extensive global experience in facility management, operational excellence, and business development which will play a pivotal role in setting up the operations of the plant in NEOM.

Prior to assuming his role at NGHC, Yako has worked most of his career at Air Products & Chemicals Inc., where he started his career in 1988 in Europe holding various plant management positions as well as roles in energy procurement, and project management. From 2005, based in the USA, he has held various global senior leadership positions in operations, technical management and SAP/ERP implementation which included to role of Global Operations Technical Support Manager - Generated Gases, supporting the rapid growth of the business in Asia, and the role of Operations Director Industrial Gases at CryoInfra, in Mexico. Since 2015, as head of the Global Operational Excellence team at Air Products, Yako was accountable for providing global technical, operation & maintenance expertise to the Operations organization to achieve their safety, sustainability, and financial goals. In this role he was responsible for operation strategy and execution for business development and mergers & acquisitions of large facilities.