Nik Metaxa-Schwarten

Born in 1964 to a Greek mother from Makedonia (the homeland of Alexander the Great) and a German father, he grew up in two countries which heavily influenced his understanding of different cultures and the world as <strong>One Home</strong>.

Nik worked almost 30 years in Executive Consulting (<a href="http://bit.ly/NIKLINKED" target="_new" rel="noreferrer">http://bit.ly/NIKLINKED</a>) with a focus on services for international top-level Cx-Executives. Among his customers are execs from ABN AMRO, Avaya, BMW, Microsoft, ZURICH, and others.

After graduating in 2012 as a CSR Manager (FA), he adopted the CSR Guideline <strong>ISO 26000:2010</strong> in his work, which he upholds along with important scientific warnings like "The Limits to Growth" by the Club of Rome (1972).

In 2017, he moved to the Philippines and went into sabbatical to dedicate part of his attention to four of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (<a href="http://bit.ly/NikSDG" target="_new" rel="noreferrer">http://bit.ly/NikSDG</a>). His theory is that, alongside PERSONAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (PSR), it will be <strong>Sustainable Communities</strong> and <strong>Responsible Partnerships</strong> between <strong>Producers & Consumers</strong> and other stakeholders, together with <strong>Strong and Peaceful Institutions</strong>, that will help solve the crisis and lead to the achievement of all other goals.

He is the Consul and co-founder of one of South East Asia's largest Internations.org Volunteer Groups, Changemakers Manila (<a href="http://bit.ly/CM_Magazine_Article" target="_new" rel="noreferrer">http://bit.ly/CM_Magazine_Article</a>), with more than 1,500 members from over 100 countries. (<a href="https://youtu.be/i5Aa2LPYLk4" target="_new" rel="noreferrer">https://youtu.be/i5Aa2LPYLk4</a>)

In 2018, he conceptualized and co-founded the #YES18, an effort to bring the collaboration professionalism of the modern global business world to the young high-potentials in the communities (namely the elected youth officials in the Philippines) to help them build the skill set for tackling the planet's threatening problems. This premiered in 2018 with Coca Cola as the main partner of ICC and continued in 2019 in Cebu but was canceled due to COVID in 2020.

His core cause is ocean plastic pollution as a top issue in the Philippines, where the country is <strong>accused by the world community of being the third biggest ocean polluter in the world</strong>.

Inspired and backed by Pope Francis' WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR THE CARE OF CREATION on Sept. 1st, 2018 (<a href="http://bit.ly/PopeOceanEnglish" target="_new" rel="noreferrer">http://bit.ly/PopeOceanEnglish</a>) and realizing the slow progress of environmental awareness and implementation in the Philippines, along with the lack of funding, he started research for a <strong>low-cost, self-sustainable, holistic solution</strong> to end the human-induced suffering of ocean life.

On his 55th birthday, Oct. 20th, 2019, he announced a solution named <strong>The Plastic Plug</strong>. In Nov. 2019, he formed the x1 foundation with the mission to <strong>empower individuals, organizations & societies</strong> in the Philippines and South East Asia, and inspire the understanding that we have only one world (x.1). Due to COVID, it took until Sept. 2020 for the SEC registration to arrive.

While Nik is Greek-Orthodox baptized, he does not insist on the Orthodox Church being the right church, as the name indicates, and instead embraces interfaith dialogue across all philosophical positions.