Kristy Reed Richards

With more than 15 years of administrative and executive support experience, including 10+ years partnering with C-suite and senior executive leaders across global, fast-paced organizations, I bring a proven ability to anticipate needs, manage complexity, and provide trusted support with discretion and sound judgment. Recognized for delivering seamless executive support with precision, professionalism, and the ability to create order from complexity while managing competing priorities across multiple leaders, stakeholders, calendars, and time zones. Known for a strong work ethic, meticulous attention to detail, and a commitment to going beyond expectations, consistently ensuring leaders are positioned to focus on strategic priorities.

Trusted to maintain confidentiality, exercise integrity, and deliver accurate, polished support across administrative, strategic, and operational priorities. A proactive partner to leadership, adept at streamlining processes, improving workflows, adopting responsible AI and digital tools, and solving problems before they arise. Combines strong organizational skills with a calm, solutions-oriented approach, enabling executive effectiveness, team collaboration, and consistent follow-through in distributed, cross-regional environments.

Executive Assistant to SVP, Investor Relations & FP&A - Nutrien - Canada

(2025-06)

Nutrien Ltd. is a global provider of crop input and agricultural services, operating across retail, potash, nitrogen, and phosphate. Headquartered in Saskatoon, Canada, the company employs 25,000+ employees, serves customers in 50+ countries, and reported approximately USD 19.6 billion in revenue in FY2025.

Executive Assistant to VP, Nutrien Business Solutions Finance & Sr Director RTR & OTC - Nutrien - Canada

(2023-02)

Senior executive support role within a complex, global finance organization, providing trusted partnership to executive leadership across Investor Relations, FP&A, and NBS Finance.

• Provide end-to-end executive support to the SVP, Investor Relations & FP&A, VP, NBS Finance and Sr Director RTR & OTC, including heavy calendar management, meeting coordination, confidential administrative support, and day-to-day prioritization across multiple executives in a fast-paced, global environment.
• Serve as a trusted gatekeeper and primary point of contact for executive offices, screening requests, exercising discretion with confidential information, and coordinating with senior stakeholders to keep priorities moving.
• Coordinate complex domestic and international travel and scheduling across multiple leaders, calendars, and global time zones, including offshore stakeholders in India with over a 12-hour time difference, ensuring leaders remain aligned and available for critical meetings.
• Support approval and signature workflows by coordinating documentation, routing items through required channels, and tracking actions/follow-ups to closure.
• Partner closely with Investor Relations, FP&A, and Finance leadership teams to support events, leadership forums, and cross-functional initiatives.
• Process executive expenses and expense claims; manage purchase requisitions/invoices and maintain organized files across SAP, Oracle, SharePoint and travel/expense platforms to support compliance and efficient executive operations.
• Responsibly leverage AI and digital tools to simplify, automate, and improve executive workflows, including meeting minutes, action tracking, summaries, calendar availability reviews, multi-calendar scheduling, presentations, and communications, while maintaining confidentiality, company policy, and system restrictions.
• Support remote and hybrid executive collaboration across North America, coordinating calendars, meeting preparation, action tracking, digital workspaces, and timely follow-up to keep executives and distributed finance teams aligned across regions and time zones.
• Partner with a community of 26+ Executive Assistants across five global locations, including creating and maintaining a dedicated SharePoint site to share information, templates, updates, best practices, coverage support, and consistent administrative standards across leadership teams.
• Founder and Chair of cross-functional Finance committees, including the Management Committee (MANCO) and the Finance Fun Committee (FFC), fostering collaboration, supporting a positive workplace culture, accountability, and psychologically safe environment.
• Drive operational excellence through process improvement initiatives, including standardization across towers, onboarding workflows, digital filing structures, and administrative best practices.
• Manage departmental financial administration, including budget tracking, purchase requisitions, and invoice coordination, ensuring accuracy and adherence to internal controls.
• Lead planning and execution of high-impact executive, stakeholder, and team events, including town halls, all-hands meetings, international visits, leadership offsite sessions, external engagements, and employee connection initiatives.
• Support strategic communications and branding initiatives for the Finance organization, collaborating with Communications and Change Management teams to align messaging, presentations, and SharePoint sites.
• Provide project coordination support to the Finance Project Management team during annual planning cycles, including organizing inputs, tracking timelines, coordinating leadership presentation support, and supporting follow-through on key deliverables.

Executive Assistant to CEO & Managing Director - Mauser Packaging Solutions Pty Ltd

(2022-08 - 2022-11)

Mauser Packaging Solutions South Africa (Pty) Ltd is part of Mauser Packaging Solutions, a global leader in industrial packaging and sustainability solutions serving regulated sectors such as chemicals, agrochemicals, manufacturing, and food. Operating within a global organization of 11,000+ employees, the South African business forms part of a multinational group with operations across multiple continents and an annual revenue of approximately USD 3.3 billion, reflecting significant scale and governance complexity. Worked in close partnership with executive leadership to support commercial execution, governance, and day-to-day effectiveness of the Executive Office within a global, regulated manufacturing environment.

• Partnered directly with the CEO, Managing Director and Executive team to manage executive priorities, communications, and decision support across strategic, operational, and confidential matters.
• Supported Sales and Commercial leadership on government tenders and negotiations, coordinating executive-level presentations, reports, and compliant tender portfolios.
• Enabled effective Board and MANCO governance, attending meetings and preparing Board packs, addendums, resolutions, and coordinating Board and shareholder approval processes.
• Reviewed commercial and operational contracts from a legal and compliance perspective, identifying risk and liability exposure, recommending amendments, and drafting revised clauses where required.
• Managed the Executive Office operations, including calendar governance, complex scheduling, inbox management, travel coordination, expense reporting, and preparation of executive-ready documents and presentations.
• Organised and reviewed meeting materials, KPI reports, agendas, and minutes to keep executive focus on key priorities and results.
• Served as a central coordination point across executives, OPCO members, and stakeholders, exercising sound judgment, discretion, and commercial awareness.

Executive Personal Assistant to CEO & Technical Director - Mondi Ltd

(2018-01 - 2022-03)

Role progression: Sales & Marketing Assistant (Temp) to CCO & Sales & Marketing Head → Personal Assistant to CIO & Technical Director → Sales & Marketing Assist - Mondi Ltd

(2015-02 - 2018-01)

Facilities & Marketing Coordinator - Adapt IT (Pty) Ltd

(2013-12 - 2014-08)

Student - Embury College & The University of South Africa - Full-Time Student

(2012-01 - 2012-12)

Assistant Co-Ordinator - R&R Marketing

(2011-06 - 2011-11)

Role progression: Filing Clerk → Creditors Clerk → Buyers Assistant - Mr Price Group

(2007-10 - 2011-01)

Advanced Certificate - Executive Assistant - ACEA Group

Executive Support Certificate - Executive Support - University of Cape Town (2019-04)

Bachelor's Degree - Education (Business Management & Economics included) - University of South Africa (2015-12)

Grade 12 - Durban Academy High School (2007-12)