Tom Smith

As the Managing Director and Head of Silicon Valley Bank’s project finance team, Tom Smith is responsible for leading the bank’s renewable banking platform. Based in Palo Alto, California, Tom and his team work closely with SVB’s Climate Technology and Sustainability practice to support projects across the Climate Tech space. With a deep understanding of the challenges that cleantech pioneers face, the team delivers powerful financial solutions custom-built to set complex projects in motion. In all aspects of his work, Tom keeps his eye on the end-goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and moving the bank’s environmental, social and governance initiatives forward.

Throughout his career, Tom has thrived on learning about technological breakthroughs — and for helping innovators push these bold ideas forward. His expertise is built on more than 30 years of experience in originating, underwriting and managing portfolios of senior-secured debt instruments to public and growth/later-stage venture capital-backed technology companies. Before taking on his current role, Tom was the head of Global Loan Syndications; in this role, he was responsible for SVB’s syndicated lending platform across North America, Europe and Israel. Tom has also served the bank as a managing director in the Corporate Finance division; during this time, he helped establish SVB’s lending practice in Northern California.

Before joining SVB, Tom was a director of knowledge-based business for CIBC in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he managed a diverse portfolio of technology companies ranging from emerging entities to large publicly traded enterprises. Tom first began serving technology clients as a founding member of the Royal Bank of Canada’s Knowledge-Based Industries Group. Before working in technology banking, Tom played a key role in co-founding a consulting firm that specialized in the design and implementation of human resource information software systems.