One Man's Waste

Nextevo founder Harold Koh is transforming the business of sustainable textiles and he is doing it one pineapple at a time

- Coco Marett

Harold Koh has lived many lives. He previously held executive roles at General Motors and machinery firm Hiab for over a decade, before spending nine years as president and CEO of Indonesian fruit supplier Great Giant Pineapple.

“After I left Great Giant, I was at a coffee shop by myself one day when I thought, you know what, all my life, I’ve been working for corporations. If I ran my own business, would I succeed?” Koh says with a laugh. “I thought, I’m going to go for it and see what happens.”

Today, he is the founder and CEO of Nextevo, a sustainable fabric manufacturer producing ready-to-spin fabrics made from discarded pineapple leaves. “It wasn’t my idea to begin with,” he admits. “It started with a conversation with a friend, who happens to own one of the world’s top coconut producers in Indonesia, about the potential of using agricultural waste to produce textiles.”

Initially, Koh was not convinced. “I didn’t want to be a scrap dealer,” he jests. But his interest was piqued. After further thought and speaking with his contacts in the agricultural sector, Koh founded Nextevo. “I didn’t know too much about coconuts,” he says. “But I came from pineapples and that’s what I wanted to start with.”