The Estée Lauder Companies has appointed Dave Smith as senior vice president, New Business Development (NBD). Smith will report to Andrew Ross, executive vice president, Strategy, New Business Development and Integration.
 
NBD was previously overseen by Shana Randhava, who was recently tapped to take on an expanded role leading New Incubation Ventures, a new capability for ELC. Randhava will continue to report directly to Ross in her new leadership role.
 
Experience
 
Smith is an experienced Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and strategic investments professional with a proven record of successfully driving all phases of the M&A process, including identification and evaluation of target companies, relationship building and management, strategic business case development, creative deal structuring, due diligence, negotiations and portfolio management of minority investments. Throughout his career, Smith has executed sophisticated M&A and strategic investment transactions that have contributed to long-term growth and value creation across a variety of industries.
 
“Dave’s deep experience, global perspective and creative vision for New Business Development make him the ideal leader to help us further develop our progressive end-to-end M&A strategy,” Ross commented. “He brings to ELC a blend of analytics and creativity, as well as an outstanding skillset in building and managing complex relationships with key stakeholders throughout the M&A ecosystem.”
 
Smith joins ELC from Corning Incorporated, where he was most recently head of Corporate Venture Capital and director of M&A. In this role, he led an interdisciplinary team in the execution of complex M&A transactions and the development of broad, strategic investment themes.
 
Prior to his time at Corning, Smith was senior director, M&A at eBay Inc., where he focused on M&A opportunities in user experience, machine learning and logistics. He also spent more than a decade at premier Wall Street firms in investment banking, investment management and corporate strategy, including serving as Managing Director at BNY Mellon, where he oversaw the corporate strategy for the investment services portfolio of businesses.
 
Smith holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Winston-Salem State University.