Meet Prevenie Naidoo: Advancing Food Packaging Coatings

From Chemist to Technical Leader

For Prevenie Naidoo, a 16-year career in packaging coatings has been shaped by a willingness to learn, take on new challenges and see the business from every angle.

Prevenie joined what was then Valspar directly out of university, beginning her career as a chemist in Durban, South Africa. Since then, she has worked across multiple areas of the packaging industry, including tubes and monoblocs, household products, food and beverage. Her experience at the Durban site also gave her opportunities to interact with manufacturing and purchasing, helping her develop a holistic understanding of packaging coatings.

Over the years, she progressed from an individual contributor to a group leader and, eventually, an R&D Technical Manager. Today, she leads the team responsible for developing food packaging coatings at the Global Technical Center in Pittsburgh. 

The transition has changed how Prevenie defines success.

“Early in my career, success was about solving problems, solving a customer issue and achieving my own goals,” she says. “Today, it’s more about developing people, building the team’s capabilities and helping bring complex technologies from concept to commercialization through the efforts of my team.”

A Global Move and a Broader Perspective

Prevenie’s journey with Sherwin-Williams has also taken her across continents. When the opportunity arose to lead the Food Packaging Coatings team, she and her husband relocated from Durban, South Africa, to Pittsburgh.

The move pushed her outside her comfort zone, bringing the challenges of adapting to a new culture and workplace. Seemingly routine tasks, such as establishing household accounts and acquiring a new driver’s license, required her to learn a different way of doing things.

“I had to parallel park again,” she recalls.

While the move required adaptability, it also created opportunities to work with teams, technologies and customers she may not otherwise have encountered. At the Global Technical Center, she has gained more immediate access to specialized equipment and expertise that can support development work across regions.

“It opened up really good opportunities to work with different teams, technologies and customers,” she says. “Ultimately, it made me more adaptable and gave me a broader perspective.” 

Prevenie also sees a familiar sense of cultural diversity in her new home. Although she misses her family and the traditional foods prepared by her parents, aunts and uncles, she appreciates the range of cultures and perspectives she has encountered in the United States.

More Than Good Chemistry

Chemistry has always been at the heart of Prevenie’s career, but her experience has shown her that successful packaging solutions require much more than a strong formulation.

The technical team is involved throughout the development process, from the earliest product concept to commercialization. That work requires collaboration with other R&D laboratories, Manufacturing, Quality, Regulatory, Supply Chain, Procurement and Commercial teams. It also involves working externally with customers and suppliers.

“I think people sometimes have the misconception that when you’re in R&D, you’re just formulating a product, and then that’s it,” she says. “It encompasses a holistic view of being able to interact with all the different departments to get the product from formulation onto the shelves.”

The strongest solutions, she explains, come from understanding the entire system. That includes the coating and substrate, curing conditions, manufacturing process and customer application.

“It’s where those pieces come together that creates the most value,” she says. “It’s not just about the chemistry of the system. It’s the entire system.” 

Bringing Ideas to Life

As R&D Technical Manager, Prevenie sees her primary responsibility as supporting her team and helping its projects succeed. That can mean guiding technical strategy, supporting employees’ career development, working with customers or collaborating across functions to bring new technologies to market.

No two days look exactly the same. Some are centered on technical discussions and project reviews. Others involve working with customers or commercial teams to gather important information. However the focus remains on advancing projects, addressing technical challenges and supporting the team.

“What I enjoy most is seeing an idea go from concept and formulation to a product that is actually being used by a customer and making an impact,” she says.

That process is rarely simple. One of the team’s ongoing challenges is balancing multiple high-priority projects while continuing to prepare technologies for the future. As expectations around performance, sustainability and regulatory compliance evolve, the team must meet today’s needs without losing sight of what customers may require next.

“It’s that balance between delivering for today but preparing for tomorrow,” she explains. 

The Advantage of Different Perspectives

Working across regions has reinforced Prevenie’s belief that diversity of thought leads to stronger solutions.

Colleagues from different countries, cultures and professional backgrounds may approach the same technical challenge in very different ways. Rather than creating an obstacle, those differences can uncover ideas that a single perspective might miss.

“It has made me more open-minded, adaptable and intentional about how I communicate and collaborate with people,” she says. “It’s good to have different opinions and different thought processes toward the same challenge because, most of the time, you’ll come out with a good solution.”

Although customers’ applications and technical requirements can vary by region, Prevenie has also seen common expectations across markets.

“No matter where they are in the world, customers want reliability,” she says. “They value consistency, responsiveness and a supplier they can trust to show up when challenges arise.” 

More Than “Just Paint”

One misconception about packaging coatings is especially important to Prevenie: the belief that they are simply paint.

In reality, packaging coatings are highly engineered materials that must withstand a demanding series of processes before they can fulfill their most recognized function.

“A packaging coating has to survive an Ironman competition before it can even start doing the job people think it is supposed to do,” she says.

Before protecting the food and package, the coating must first withstand can manufacturing and fabrication, followed by sterilization and exposure to the packaged product. Only then can it provide corrosion protection and help protect both the food and packaging over time.

“Corrosion protection is actually the last step a coating needs to cross in a very long list of requirements,” she explains. “It’s more than just paint. It’s a highly engineered material.” 

Preparing for What Comes Next

Looking ahead, Prevenie expects the future of packaging coatings to be shaped by sustainability, evolving regulations and the need for even stronger performance.

Customers will continue looking for solutions that are safe, reliable and flexible enough to meet the changing market and regulatory demands. They will also need innovative technologies that work across multiple applications and can be commercialized efficiently.

For Prevenie, technical expertise, customer relationships and long-term focus on innovation provide a strong foundation for meeting those needs.

The work will require teams to keep learning, collaborating and preparing for what comes next. For a leader who has built her career around embracing new challenges and bringing different perspectives together, that future is full of opportunity.

PREVENIE AT A GLANCE

Title: R&D Technical Manager, Food Packaging Coatings

Time With Sherwin-Williams: 16 years

Education: B.S. in Chemistry; M.S. in Polymer Chemistry; postgraduate qualification in Business Management

Location: Global Technical Center, Pittsburgh