Yako J. Wijnands

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. Experience in managing large sites and multi-disciplined global technical teams puts Yako in a unique position to develop the teams to operate the first-of-its kind green hydrogen facility.

Yako is committed to develop a high-performance operations organisation at NGHC to deliver world class safety, operational excellence, technology implementation and cost competitive operations & maintenance. His passion and focus are building strong and diverse teams with a culture of safety, quality, continuous improvement, and operational excellence, which will enable NGHC to succeed in its mission to transform the green hydrogen economy.

Prior to assuming his role at NGHC, Yako has worked at Air Products since 1988, where he started his career in Europe holding various plant management positions as well as roles in energy procurement, and project management. From 2005 he has held various global senior leadership positions in operations, technical management and SAP/ERP implementation including the role of Global Operations Technical Support Manager (Generated Gases) based in the USA, supporting the rapid growth of the business in Asia. In 2012 he assumed the role of Operations Director Industrial Gases at CryoInfra (AP JV), in Mexico.

Since 2015, as head of the Global Operational Excellence team, Yako was accountable for providing global technical, operation & maintenance expertise to Operations 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.

Yako graduated with a BEng in Mechanical Engineering from Surrey University, UK and is a chartered member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. 

Yako grew up in an international environment. He was born in Spain from Dutch parents, studied in the UK, pursued an international career, and currently lives in the US. Outside work, he enjoys traveling, exploring foreign cultures, cycling, playing golf and outdoor activities.