“The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.” — Jonas Salk

”As a leader, I don’t think there is any more important characteristic than authenticity. I spend a good bit of every day working to understand what that means for me — who I truly am.”

I was born and raised in N. Carolina and this is our state motto. When I was a kid, it was on all of the license plates. I had no idea what it meant until later in life, which is simply, be authentic.

“Esse quam videri”, a Latin expression which translates to “to be, rather than to seem.”

"The greatest accomplishment is not in never failing, but in rising again after you fall". — Vince Lombardi

Biography

D. Michael Wilson

Michael is a highly accomplished CEO and board director. He possesses a broad and unique perspective and skillset having served as the CEO of both public and private equity-sponsored companies. He has deep board experience through his service on numerous public, private equity, and non-profit company boards and on a breadth of board committees, including executive, audit, finance, governance, and environmental, health and safety. Over the course of a nearly 35-year career, Michael has demonstrated exceptional leadership skills and has an outstanding track record of delivering top- and bottom-line results, transforming organizations and building companies across global specialty and commodity businesses. He is passionate about corporate purpose and culture and creating competitive advantage by connecting people to purpose.

Career History

From April 2022 to January 2025, Michael served as president and CEO of Vibrantz Technologies, a leading global provider of specialty chemicals and materials with revenues of ~$2 billion. The company serves over 11,000 customers globally, employs 5,000 people and has 50+ manufacturing locations across six continents. Vibrantz is an American Securities portfolio company formed from the three-way combination of Prince International, Chromaflo Technologies and Ferro Corporation (NYSE: FOE), the latter taken private via a $2.1 billion acquisition. Michael led the successful integration of Vibrantz, establishing the new purpose, vision, strategy and “One Vibrantz” culture. Since deal close – following a lengthy regulatory approval process that included the carve-out and divestiture of a portion of the legacy Prince business – Michael oversaw the delivery of $150+ million in cost synergies and productivity gains in the 24 months since formation. The company implemented the first phase of its digitalization effort to consolidate to a single instance of SAP S/4 HANA. Safety performance for Vibrantz, as measured by recordable injury rates, improved over 60% and the company published an initial Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report.

Michael served as President and CEO of Prince International from 2020 until the formation of Vibrantz. Assuming leadership of the company during the pandemic and a period of largely virtual work, Michael led the company to year-over-year revenue and earnings growth during 2021 of 14% and 16%, respectively. Driving a renewed focus on innovation, Prince delivered sales of new products approaching $100 million, doubling the three-year new product vitality index from 8% to 16%. Safety performance as measured by recordable injuries improved 41%.

Prior to Prince, Michael served as president, CEO and as a director of Ingevity (NYSE: NGVT). Hired by WestRock Company, Michael led the spin-off of Ingevity into a public company in May 2016 and saw Ingevity named Forbes’ “#1 Spin-Off of 2016.” From 2016 – 2019, Michael led Ingevity’s revenue growth from $900 million to $1.3 billion and delivered a doubling of earnings (adj. EBITDA) from $200 to $400 million. Over this period, the market capitalization of Ingevity more than quadrupled to $4.5 billion while the company completed three acquisitions, deploying ~$1 billion to value creating inorganic growth. During his tenure, Ingevity launched “The IngeviWay” blueprint for organizational strategy, improved safety to top quartile performance, and published its first sustainability report.

Michael has served as a C-Suite executive reporting directly to the CEO, interfacing with the board of directors, and routinely engaged with investors for more than 25 years. Prior to Ingevity, Michael was at Albemarle Corp. (NYSE: ALB), where he co-led the transformative acquisition of Rockwood Lithium and its integration. And for 15 years prior, he served as an executive officer and led various businesses for FMC Corp. (NYSE: FMC), including FMC Lithium, the Industrial Chemicals Group, and the Specialty Chemicals businesses. His tenure at FMC was marked by consistent revenue and earnings growth, operational turnarounds, and mergers and acquisitions.

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