Nicolola Tangen: Hi everyone. I'm Nicolola Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian So Wealth Fund. And today I'm in Switzerland and in really really good company because I am at Jivoda, the world leader in flavors and tastes and smells and all these fantastic things which surround us. And I'm here with Jilan who has been the CEO for 20 years. And warm welcome.

Gilles Andrier: Thank you and warm welcome to Switzerland and to Jivon and here in Kent.

Nicolola Tangen: Wonderful. And it's kind of incredible to be here at your R&D center, the center of the world's smell and taste. So, let's kick off. What is what is Jiva in brief? What do they do? What do you do?

Gilles Andrier: Um I can see it in different ways. We make the world taste and smell very good. But we actually we we we really thought about our our purpose a little while ago and we wanted to expand beyond just the world of fragrances and flavors. So the way we express what we do and what we are meant to do is to make consumers happier and healthier which gives us a broader perspective on what we could do for them beyond the taste and smell.

Nicolola Tangen: Why is smell and taste so important in connecting people? because we are animals in the first place.

Gilles Andrier: Totally.

Gilles Andrier: Yeah. You know, just something which is interesting which is for me always, you know, even after 21 years as CEO, 32 years at Jivido, I'm still amazed by how you know, this business is magic. So in the first place, for example, you know, in your body, in our bodies, we have 2,000 receptors

Nicolola Tangen: and you actually have 500, so a quarter of them which are only dedicated to taste and smell.

Gilles Andrier: So it's basically the surviving kit in the first place. Yes, it's to have a pleasant life to you know smell beautiful things and so forth but in the first place it has basically where it's a survival kilt. It's about you know bitterness is poison foul is not good for you but at the same time sweet is is calories is better for you. It's about energy. So it's all those things that obviously is at the core of consumers and obviously we are dealing with memories because the the the body is designed in such a way that actually it has such a connection with the emotions with the memories and it's actually the fastest way to go from the senses to the memory and that's why those things are being so linked. So that's the beauty of our business and that's the cornerstone of what we of what we do.

Nicolola Tangen: M m well you do many things and there many ways to kind of get into this but I just love to kick off with the creative process when you develop and use smell um who well first of all who do you who do you create it for

Gilles Andrier: So we are in a B2B business obviously Jivon is not a brand in itself where you will find Jivodon on the shelf because taste and smell is actually the key differentiating attribute when a consumer wants to repurchase a product any product it comes at the top of the list before packaging advertising pricing whatever the functionality of a product it's not us saying that it's our own clients

Nicolola Tangen: so let's say now I'm Tom Ford I come to you I want to create a new perfume what do we how do we attack this

Gilles Andrier: So basically that's what's called a brief so you're going to issue a brief you are the product manager the the marketing director of Tom Ford at the Celodo and you're going to issue a brief and you're going to brief us but alongside other fragrance houses because it's a competitive brief and you want to get the best out of the creativity of a broad range of perfumers. So that's how you go about it. We might actually define the brief together because I might you know we might help you in defining the brief what type of consumers how does it position itself with the other you know perfumes that you have under the Tom Ford area you might have some ideas so it's really we enter a co-development process together through the brief and then we have so we have 200 perfumers around the world we're not going to have 200 perfumers working on the top four brief But we are going to have the fine finance perfumemers out of the New York, out of Paris, out of you know maybe some other places and we're going to create some ideas and it's going to be like a funnel with the team of Tom for to actually select eliminate and they're going to do that with the other fragrance houses and at some point we're going to find a few leads which with on which we're going to work together make some consumer test and so forth. And then that can take three weeks with a very small client two three years it can take a long time and the best the best wins but when you say lead what is that I mean so now I have my existing fragrances

Nicolola Tangen: and then what type of leads would they be

Gilles Andrier: So you might have a range already in the top four the you know which are very sort of woody or or some of the fruity or some of the and it might be interesting and that's going to be us coming to you with some ideas to fit maybe a gap or something that you know essentially is going to fit the the range of perfumes that you already have but which also needs to echo to what Tom Ford is as a brand you know because the beauty of this business is that any brand has almost like an alactive signature it smells like Tom it smells like Gucci so it needs to fit basically the strate strategic you know some some form of strategy in the portfolio but also to fit the signature of the of the brand and that's what we do together. So you might have and that's really based on the creativity of our perfumers finding ideas out of the blue as much as you know being a bit more rational in terms of of how does this fit in the in the range of the so that's there is actually you know very often we are we are fit by investors and so forth into the chemical industry

Gilles Andrier: we are as far as the chemical industry as you can imagine we actually closer to especially when we talk about fine factor also the advertising industry where it's all about defining the brand, defining the attributes of the brand and then translating that into a message and how you going to communicate about it. So it's a bit the same process.

Nicolola Tangen: How does smell fit into fashion? How how do the fashion waves and smell how does it work?

Gilles Andrier: So you have trends obviously you know for for example today you know over the last 10 years there's been an enormous trend around gourmand you know it's about um you know the gourman sort of signatures and so forth. you you might want obviously to jump onto the trend of some trends or for example today what's extremely interesting and and and you know our fine finance business has been booming for the last five years double digit it's been very much fueled by the Gen Z the genpha and know suddenly it's a whole cohort of consumers who found so exciting to actually express themselves with multi-layering fragrances and it's really a matter of expressing yourself And um through that you know it came out very clearly that because it's a matter of expression fine fragrances needed to bloom and to really diffuse very much so as compared maybe to 20 25 years ago where it was really about having fragrances for yourself and so forth. So those are trends which evolve with consumers and we also create some trends you know with with with newness with new ingredients that we develop. So

Nicolola Tangen: so tell me about something on new the new stuff. What's new stuff? So what should I wear to be modern in a fragrance world?

Gilles Andrier: There's not something it's it's really about well it's like in fashion you know you you there as many brands as fashion you know can can propose. So it's really about how you how you feel about the fragrance you know how you there are so many families there's an infinite possibility of fragrances and therefore it's it's really about exploring it's really about and that's what new consumers do. It's very interesting to see them. They spend their Saturday afternoons on in brick and shop, brick and mortar, you know, shops exploring together and what fits you. So, it's a matter of expression. What music do you like? I can't tell you just experiment. So, it's it's it's a bit like this in in fragrances.

Nicolola Tangen: Okay. So, say now we have had the brief. We decide that we want to go down the citrusy route. Right.

Gilles Andrier: Exactly. Um, so the freshness with a citrus top note on top of a woody ambery note

Nicolola Tangen: like oavage type uh thing. So what do we

Gilles Andrier: So what do we do? So we go into the lab together, you and I. And

Nicolola Tangen: so we go obviously we we Yeah, we go there and then

Nicolola Tangen: what do you have what do you have in the lab? What does a lab look like?

Gilles Andrier: So you have at the core. So again you go back to the perfumemers. So the noses.

Nicolola Tangen: Yeah.

Gilles Andrier: Uh you know they they're going to write a formula.

Gilles Andrier: Yeah. They're going to express like you know you will write a piece of music on the computer they write the formula they know how the formula smells this is also a piece of magic you know they it's just a matter of expression obviously then

Nicolola Tangen: so it's like a musician you can read the notes and feel in his head what it's going to look like

Gilles Andrier: exactly and then but obviously they needs to still smell the reality like a musician you need to play the music

Nicolola Tangen: so you smell the sample it's

Nicolola Tangen: where do you have the sample do you have you have lots of different smells in the in the lab

Gilles Andrier: So you have for every perfume You have a technician sitting 20 m away with an organ of different ingredients. The pallet of ingredients which can be 500 to,500 different ingredients. And those ingredients are part of the formula. The technician makes the formula, weighs every single ingredient, very tiny drops, a bit more volume, some other ingredients, makes the sample, mix in the alcohol, go back to the perfumer. The perfumer smells, put a plate, smells, um, and then the the perfumer is not by himself or herself. She is surrounded with people who are going to help in the process. people at Jivodong, you know, so it's called evaluators. So the evaluators are there to actually bridge the work of the perfumemers with what the clients want, what the brand want on the outside because also you might not be the only perfumer working on this brief alge

Gilles Andrier: so that we maximize the chances of winning the brief.

Nicolola Tangen: How many evaluators do you have? So on a project you have one or two evaluators but you might have two or three perfumers working on big briefs.

Nicolola Tangen: So they compete

Gilles Andrier: they compete but that's

Nicolola Tangen: it friendly competition or

Gilles Andrier: it's a very friendly competition because it's a teamwork where every at the end of the day you have an interest into your perfume part to win because it's a it's it's we have incentive plans we have. So basically the way it's designed is that there is interest that we all win together. Obviously the perfumer wins might be a bit prouder than the one who has just participated in the race but

Nicolola Tangen: so here we have so we now have a bottle the stuff in there we love it the evaluators like it what do you do then

Gilles Andrier: so then obviously we go back to so the clan so they in France there's a lot of interaction so the clans comes to the office uh

Nicolola Tangen: we smell together we smell this this idea but we might might smell other ideas u and then in front of us. You know, at the client side, you have people who are very capable of evaluating the fine fragrance. How does it fit? How do they feel about it?

Gilles Andrier: Uh, and then you might be selected to go into tests because some clients test the fragrances, some others just go by their conviction and gut feeling. Uh but essentially you might go into a consumer test

Gilles Andrier: and therefore you know it's it's it's 100 for example consumers on which we're going to present the fragrances in different countries and you're going to test those ideas against benchmarks which are testing very well. So that's a comforting way of saying maybe that's going to be potentially a success. Mhm.

Gilles Andrier: There is some limitations to that because the more you test, the more you're going to maybe lock yourself into something that consumers already know. Most of the big successes maybe were never tested because actually the only way to actually create something very different is not to have consumers smell things that they are used to. So actually um there is always a debate about should you test should you not test but it can be a um a comfort factor. You can have things which actually don't test very well but we are going to be huge successes. So you have a lot of paradoxes but that's

Nicolola Tangen: do we tend to like do we tend to like more the stuff we already know.

Gilles Andrier: Exactly. That's the

Nicolola Tangen: how predictable is it? So now we have something how how often are you really able to predict the success of a product? Well, that's the especially in fine fragrances that's that's you have a certain you know you know more or less you know if you have really poor test results you know it's going to be a flop so you better not launch it but it's not because you're testing very well that's going to be huge success. So because there are other elements you know you need to have the right packaging the right mix the right advertising. So um so there is a certain form of predictability uh but uh but you have no no assurance like in anything but music

Nicolola Tangen: you know one of the worst uh test results ever for a product was Red Bull.

Gilles Andrier: People just totally hated it. I mean it was so awful

Nicolola Tangen: that normally you would have put it into huge bottles and sold it for nothing.

Gilles Andrier: Instead they put it into very small bottles and sold it for a huge price and supposedly is the second bestselling beverage in the world. Right.

Gilles Andrier: So you have examples in the industry.

Nicolola Tangen: So what's the biggest surprise? What's been the biggest surprise for you? That's something you didn't think was going to sell

Gilles Andrier: a business school one which we did many years back. It's called Angel by Muglair. Uh and that was really really really disruptive. That was a very gourman in your face overwhelming.

Nicolola Tangen: So what does GMO mean? What does that mean?

Gilles Andrier: Gmon means it's a very sweety chocolate very edible.

Gilles Andrier: Usually again back to the animal story we like what is linked to food

Gilles Andrier: you know so in this case Angel was quite polarizing uh but the the woman at the time Vi you know had a huge conviction and they launched it and it's called what is called a slow builder. So actually you know it was not necessarily an initial success but over time it built up and it attracted consumers and today Angel we say in perfumery is the mother of many many many other fragrances which went into this gond root. So you need sometimes to take risks on on in in fine fragrances to have a very strong conviction to create what we call trends setters.

Nicolola Tangen: What are some of the other mothers?

Gilles Andrier: Actually what's very interesting is that because of new ingredients, new molecules which have been created in the meanwhile to enrich the palette that we just talked about and some of those new molecules are being created here in this building where you know Akiwood for example is something that has been created few years back which now has made is behind so many successes in fine finance that it actually created a trend by itself. So you can create new trends and new mothers and fathers through new ingredients and new molecules. And that's why it's extremely important to be to have the best talent, the best perfumers formulating but also helped by very novel ingredients which will help create new new fragrances down the road.

Gilles Andrier: M so when you look at the whole fragrance uh market how much consists of the old classics you know the Chanel number five the opium these kind of things and how much is the new

Nicolola Tangen: more funky stuff

Gilles Andrier: so it's so so n just to for the interest of our people listening to us so um it's called the ch so basically in fine fragrances okay uh nowadays the the business the market has grown so much that the aero ion of fine frankers used to when you are at a market growth of let's say 5% you have 25% newness 20% erosion so you can imagine that the churn the replacement is is is quite fast

Gilles Andrier: today because jivven we are growing more like 15% on average in fine fragrances we are more at the pace of let's say 10% erosion uh but 25% newness Yes. So, so uh basically yes, we still have a lot of old classics which are a bit the foundation the uh but uh essentially the newness has come uh you know so yeah everybody every brand tries to hook it's called you know to put to place basically a perfume in the top 10 top 15 somewhere uh you know but it's it's um you need time to do this

Nicolola Tangen: what do you wear so

Gilles Andrier: Uh I usually don't advertise for brands but I will answer very happily your question

Gilles Andrier: by Prada which is my fragrance for many many years. Uh you know we have done a lot of fragrances for for Prada and I'm wearing one of them.

Nicolola Tangen: Very good. How important are the perfumemers because you are married to one.

Gilles Andrier: Yes.

Nicolola Tangen: What what what kind of skills do you do you need to have? Obviously as you know um you know at the core of of Jividor we have a perfumery school. So the perfumery school

Nicolola Tangen: and I'm sorry do you have you have educated very many of the world's perfumemers.

Gilles Andrier: Yeah and and the perfumery school of jivor is very well known because it has been established more than almost 80 years ago. Uh it actually train created uh 40% of the let's say 40% of all perfumes were sold in the world were were created by perfumemers coming from the school of juvenile um so it's a well-renown so to characterize what needs to be a perfumer uh it starts there so we select them on the basis of yeah can they smell obviously but you know this magic about the nose everybody has more or less a good nose. I mean, but the difference between

Nicolola Tangen: Well, you say that you have super tasters, right? You have people with

Gilles Andrier: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's the accuracy is like the it's like the perfect ear maybe and so forth. But even if you have the perfect ear, does it make you a mozzard? I don't know. Um, so it's really about having a lot of passion for it because you need you're going to do that for the next 40 years. You you really need to love it because it's tough. You know, it looks very nice on paper. It's magic. But we we we discussed about the briefing process. You are in competition. You as an individual perfumer, you're going to lose a brief nine times out of 10

Gilles Andrier: or eight times out of 10. So you have a lot of deceptions. You have a lot of setbacks and you need to grab all your confidence to go on the next brief and to be continuously creative. So resilience, persistence is extremely important. Then obviously having uh you know this this this creativity this uh you know generation of new ideas and so forth is is obviously extremely extremely important. So that's how we we we we select them. It's in the first place in the resilience the persistence that's the most important attribute.

Nicolola Tangen: Okay let's move on to flavors.

Gilles Andrier: Flavors. So it's more or less the same business but the application uh is different. So what we described about fine fragrances but then obviously fragrances going into home care into personal care into hair care it's the same process the same briefing the same you know skill set and then you have the same for flavors where the application would be beverage would be food would be um uh you know sweets uh because most of the time yes the food provides a lot of taste But because of uh you know uh the sort of the the fact that you have packaged food and so forth a lot of what we call the volatile the top notes disappear in the process you need to put back some of those top notes those flavors which are going to create the really fresh strawberry that you expect from a yogurt. And when you say top notes,

Nicolola Tangen: the top notes,

Gilles Andrier: the top notes it's really the the profile when you smell.

Gilles Andrier: Uh so you have top notes, middle notes, dry downs, that's in perfumery. Well, in flavors when you eat something most of what you experience in the taste are actually the top notes, the volatiles. You you don't you don't you don't chew your uh whatever you have to eat for hours. So actually the impact of flavors is is a few uh a few seconds a few minutes. So it's really about the first impact when you when you peel an orange when you smell an orange it's the top not all those volatiles which comes to you then you have yeah then you experience sweetness and so forth over over time. But the the big difference between flavor and fragrance is that in fragrance you have the top notes but then when you have a perfume you're going to wear it maybe for a few hours. So you expect the dry downs, the smells continuing to to to diffuse uh over time in in flavors. It's the basically the impact is very short at the beginning. So that's why

Nicolola Tangen: what what are some of the famous flavors that you have made that we eat and experience every day.

Gilles Andrier: We don't quote them. We don't name them. We are perfect

Nicolola Tangen: because the client relationships are secret.

Gilles Andrier: Exactly.

Nicolola Tangen: But if you had to do one or two,

Gilles Andrier: if I had to do one or two,

Nicolola Tangen: if you had to tell me one or two.

Gilles Andrier: Uh okay I can tell you one uh I can tell you one because they allow us you know it's a long story it dates back very interesting because it was a true innovation Snapple in the US it was a whole range it's four window cleaners in the early 2000s basically who actually decided to launch a new beverage way of you know to to to really innovate on the side of CSZ carbonated soft drinks and it was really about having this sort of very natural uh beverage based on tea and so forth. or the whole Snapple range, you know, we we did that. Uh and uh so that's one example where you come with the full and it's an interesting example because it was not just the flavor, it was really the full combination of juice with a bit of flavor diluted in water and there was really a new way of consuming beverage. So that would be one one example, but you have flavors going into you know at the other end of the spectrum. Uh for example, all the work that we do on plant-based proteins, you know, the replacement of dairy proteins with plant-based proteins for vegetarians, you need to have basically something which is going to taste like dairy or and you're adding some some flavors which are going to to give the richness. So those things would be flavors which are going to enhance that. But we do other things which are very interesting which relate to health. We all know that sugar, salt and fat is not good for at least the excess of it. And therefore the minute our clients are removing salt, sugar, fat or adding functional vitamins, functional things, you need again back we are animals.

Gilles Andrier: Intellectually you should not eat sugar and salt and so forth. But your belly is going to overtake whatever decisions you have taken to to to eat healthy food. So meaning that you experience that. So if it doesn't taste good, you're not going to do it a second time. So that's why the taste is extremely important. That's that we work on with flavors with what we call taste modulators to mimic to mimic for example the sweetness, the saltiness or to reduce the bitterness. And that's what we do in taste solutions. So it goes beyond flavors.

Nicolola Tangen: Absolutely. You talked about the top notes. What are the other things that you feel when you eat something that you are working on?

Gilles Andrier: The taste buds.

Nicolola Tangen: So the taste top, bitterness, sweetness, saltiness, umami, cucumi, you know, the edibility thing. That's all the thing we work on.

Nicolola Tangen: Um when you have um configured this for a client, how long do the client the contracts typically work for?

Gilles Andrier: So that goes back a bit to to both fragrances and and and flavors, you know. So we just want our uh fine fragrance Tom Font brief. We just won a snapple one.

Gilles Andrier: Um that's a bit the beauty of our business model because you briefed us but along with other houses actually we worked for free for you. All of that is for free. We actually did the whole job. We developed the whole formula. It might me have lasted two or three years. The formula is finished. You decide it's this one. We have worked for free because

Nicolola Tangen: but now I have to start to pay.

Gilles Andrier: Yeah. But the first point is because we were for free, we have the IP on the formula. We own the formula.

Gilles Andrier: Okay.

Gilles Andrier: The formula is not patent.

Nicolola Tangen: IP being intellectual property.

Gilles Andrier: Yes.

Gilles Andrier: Yes. So you cannot patent a formula, but we own the secret of the formula. We own the right to do the business and to produce this formula for you.

Gilles Andrier: So there is no such a thing as royalty. We don't need the royalties. It's just because we manufacture the fragrance or the flavor, we're going to basically sell it to you with a certain profit which is going to pay for the expenses to have worked on the briefs and maybe the other briefs that you might be issuing the next time. So that's how it works. So we we supply the flavor or the fragrance as long as your product is on the shelf.

Nicolola Tangen: M now one of the reasons why we why we love Jiva is that what you uh produce is a small portion of the cost of the client.

Gilles Andrier: Yeah.

Nicolola Tangen: How big and small is it?

Gilles Andrier: So it's roughly on average four to 5% of the cost of goods sold on fragrances.

Nicolola Tangen: Yeah.

Gilles Andrier: And it's 0.5% 6% on flavors. So it's a very minuscule part of the cost. But the beauty is that uh it's also the biggest driver of liking. So we have a bit this leverage uh you know which basically uh and because it's so complex that's also the a bit the paradox that we have is that because you have a lot of complexities and complexities don't just lie on perfumemers and flavorists. Uh it's complexities in the whole supply chain. We we supply 17,000 ingredients. you have

Gilles Andrier: we have to to to service our clients all around the world. So um the paradox is that they outsource the most important driver of liking because it's complex.

Nicolola Tangen: Now we want to be individual and be special and yet uh in many ways these uh smells and tastes become ubiquitous. They are all over the place. Uh tell me about the kind of the the trade-off between being special and unique and mass production.

Gilles Andrier: Well, it's not really a I would say it's not really a conflict. I mean uh um yes every I mean in the first place as you as you rightly so because it's so critical to the success of the brand everybody wants to be different by definition uh and but that's exactly why it's a briefing system where they expect having something different from every time and that's really at the essence of our business model that anything that we sell we sell thousands of different products thousands of different formula every one of them is specific specific to the client, specific to the brand and we never sell this same exact fragrance to somebody else because it's a question of um you know basically this yes we have the IP but this is this IP is for you um so um uh yeah you can have things which are looking a bit or smelling a bit tasting a bit but the beauty is that the the possibilities are so infinite

Gilles Andrier: and uh this fragrance might be great for this brand but not might not be so suitable or so relevant for this other brand. So and maybe not relevant for this market. You know there's obviously consumers I mean as as you mentioned it's linked to memories, taste and smell, emotions, how you feel, culture. So there are as many trends and differences in terms of markets as there are countries and and ethnics and so on. So the diversity is so wide and so big that in fact uh you know this idea about everything looking the same is not uh is not happening.

Nicolola Tangen: Now we have an artist who is working on you know with smell. She's called Sisil Tulos. She's Norwegian. She works out of Germany. Uh and she's making for instance a room where you come into the room and you start crying you know on the back of the smell. Do you feel that you manipulate people sometimes with what you do?

Gilles Andrier: No, we make people happier. We don't manipulate them. We we uh um manipulation is a very uh very aggressive word. Uh I would say in another world another way um in when you think about especially what we call fragrances for consumer products. So you could argue that when you do and use your floor cleaner or a fabric, uh it needs to smell very good. So yes, it's about having the pleasant smell. But in a way, the fragrance role is to reinforce the idea that your floor is clean and reinforce the idea that your hair clean and reinforce the idea. So

Nicolola Tangen: sometimes sometimes when my wife is away I put a bit when before she comes home I put a bit of that on the floor wipe it out a bit so she should smell really clean and she thinks I've done a great job right

Gilles Andrier: absolutely so you can say are you manipulating your wife maybe so so that's where I'm coming from

Nicolola Tangen: absolutely how does this industry look like now how many players are you

Gilles Andrier: Um well uh not really. So the Chinese uh they entered the market many years back but more on the what we call the ingredient side making through the you know they are good with with chemistry they're actually now good with biotechnology uh so making some of the ingredients that we use in fragrances um and we use them as suppliers to feed what we do we went into China 30 years ago we are we are Chinese ourselves we are 1200 people in China we have five big sites We deal with local Chinese clients, big clients. So we are really well established and we have not seen relevant sort of big Chinese competitors emerging.

Nicolola Tangen: Are you seeing new competitors for instance from China?

Gilles Andrier: Um well uh not really. So the Chinese uh they entered the market many years back but more on the what we call the ingredient side making through the you know they are good with with chemistry they're actually now good with biotechnology uh so making some of the ingredients that we use in fragrances um and we use them as suppliers to feed what we do we went into China 30 years ago we are we are Chinese ourselves we are 1200 people in China we have five big sites We deal with local Chinese clients, big clients. So we are really well established and we have not seen relevant sort of big Chinese competitors emerging.

Nicolola Tangen: Let's move on to uh to the corporate culture. How would you define the corporate culture at Jivoda?

Gilles Andrier: Well, this is something that is absolutely key to me. So um when I joined Jivodon, I bumped into Jivodon 32 years ago by by chance. Nobody knew that behind products you had noses and and flavories creating those. I really bumped into this magic this magic business by by coincidence and chance. But I also discovered a culture which basically attracted me. So the culture at Jividon is very strong. I think it defines and it's really core to the success of Jividon. But basically I've grown this culture. have enriched this culture all along my tenure as as cogn so the culture yeah we have obviously the this huge diversity yes we are a Swiss company but it's a Swiss company we have 8 million people in Switzerland so it doesn't define us as as a culture we are a multi- truly a multinational cultures but it's also the result of the fact that we have done many acquisitions many u mergers over the last 20, 25 years, but even before which has enabled us to have a very sort of um inclusive culture, diverse culture culture and really where everybody uh sort of joins around this culture and this culture what is it? Well, we we we we finally because we finally managed to define it a few years back because it's one thing to say I've got a strong culture but what what is it? So the best way we could articulate it where everybody felt really strong about that is that it's almost two spheres. One is really about performance driven. We are not not just because we are stocklisted company, not because um you know we have to def to to deliver on financials but simply because we feel I feel extremely obligated visa VR clients. It goes back to the business model. they are outsourcing the most important driver of lacking to us. We better uh be up to the task and um so being performing, being challenging, being inspirational, being creative is is absolutely key and that's what makes our people passionate about and always you know uh you know ready for the for the extra. So the performance the challenging is really one part of it. The second part which I think defines us even more so is really what we call the heart and soul. We are a caring company. We are a human company. Not because we like saying that we are a human company but because in the first place that's how that's how I would say our DNA the magic of the DNA has has evolved and the humanity is tested every day. is tested when you have to restructure jiu- you have to let go people you say what you do you do you say you don't play tricks you do it with caring with humanity so humanity is also tested when things you know are more difficult

Gilles Andrier: uh in how also we relate to each other the the leadership I'm I'm the CE jivon we are very we are all very accessible so it's really the way of being which is part of I would say the magic of a culture very always very difficult to define ind the magic, it defines the chemistry, but it's very strong at JIV.

Nicolola Tangen: So, you have been for 20 years. So, I would expect the corporate culture to reflect who you are as a person. So, if I read it back to you, you know, performance-driven, creative, caring, and accessible aren't those characteristics that we can put on you as well.

Gilles Andrier: Yeah. Otherwise, it could not have worked for 21 years.

Nicolola Tangen: That's what I mean. So there

Gilles Andrier: because it takes because it takes 10 years to uh change a global culture. You've had 20 years and so I expect this company to really reflect you as a person.

Gilles Andrier: Yeah. But you know I'm also a very humble guy. So it's not such a thing where I said I woke up one morning and said here's going to be the culture. I think there was a magic fit between what Jivon had in its core DNA and who I was who I am and the match was there. So yes I define myself as this the performing guy and the caring guy. And what do you think the biggest difference between Jivoda and other companies in the in the same field? What do you think is the main differentiator?

Gilles Andrier: I cannot talk on their behalf because I've never worked for them. I compete with them. Uh but the only thing I can say is that uh that's how our clients talk about us. you know the way I just define the culture of Jividon actually was something that we we really um really echoes the way we are being talked about. Uh so so uh I think the humanity side the caring side is something that maybe defines us um not that the others are not human but essentially that's what's come out very strongly.

Nicolola Tangen: Is there anything any part of the copper culture you try to improve just now or working particularly on?

Gilles Andrier: Um yeah because we are never never perfect. So we became a very large company. When I started we were 4,000 people. We are 17,000 people. Um we grew we transformed the company but uh always being extremely u you know diligent about um growing but not at the expense of the agility. So finding always you know ways to improve the agility uh to reach out to very small clients to be not considered as the big big jivodon which is not going to take care of the small clients is super important to be fast on execution um we are considered very very good on execution but at the same time you know something around agility and so forth is something that we can further further improve.

Nicolola Tangen: How do you avoid bureaucracy? I would say that's almost part of the culture and and maybe part to avoid it.

Gilles Andrier: Well, no, but even beyond that, I will be very direct. Uh and hotel jivon doesn't survive more than 3 seconds. Meaning that we are because we have all grown in this business. I've been I've been running figures. I've been running operations. I've been a salesperson. I' I've done the job. And the people reporting to me, the ones who are running divisions and the next levels, they all grown within the company having done the business. So we know where we we cannot take be taken on a ride. We are very pragmatic. We are very concrete. Um so the bureaucracy is something that we we we almost by nature avoid. Now we still need to do hard work that we are not overwhelmed by by the size and the fact that processes are too complex and so forth. That's the work I was just talking about. But that's also part of the culture to really um we still live like we are large company but still think as a as a small entrepreneurial company.

Nicolola Tangen: And how do you make sure that things are speedy and agile? How do you work on speed?

Gilles Andrier: So on speed uh we actually have done uh quite uh significant things. Uh as an example we have uh obviously we have a a lot of processes you know on the supply chain again backs to the complexity what we did a few years back you know we have roughly 130 sites around the world. So we regrouped all our processes all the supply chains into three big shared services centers belonging to Jivodon. That's a very big important thing. We never outsource those. They are part of Jividon. But that allowed us actually to be much better on execution all those processes. How you deal with clouds, how do you supply uh your ingredients and so forth and that allowed us as well to apply AI to apply digital. it's much easier to put in place technology and change things on three sides than compared to 130 sides. So that has really helped us and we continue doing that by housing even more processes. So that's part of the way we've I think um differentiated ourselves on the execution.

Nicolola Tangen: What are your most important leadership principles?

Gilles Andrier: Well, it goes back a bit uh you know to the to to to to the culture. I think it's really about uh back to the performing and caring. Um I would say that uh you know we have learned to uh first is to is to it's a bit the equity story that we have created you know committing on on very uh ambitious targets always that has really in a way looking backwards always helped me help help us that not being shy about setting ambitious targets which look intimidating

Gilles Andrier: uh but that's the only way you're going to get to them or close to them And uh the thing is that what we have managed you know I've done we we run the company with five years cycle. So it's been four five four times five year cycle which you've done. We have always delivered on everything that we've committed. Uh so this is something that is really ingrained uh in what we do is really to deliver on what you promise.

Gilles Andrier: Uh the second thing is really about being entrepreneurs. you know, I think uh finding ways to uh through the innovation, I think that's that's extremely important. Um, which is at the core of of of what we do.

Nicolola Tangen: How does your day look like? When do you wake up?

Gilles Andrier: Uh, so I don't wake up at 5:00 a.m. like a lot of CEOs say, you know, I I can't wake up at 5:00 a.m. So, well, well, actually, I wake up many times to patch the plane, but uh yeah, so say 7 a.m. 7:30 and and I go on for the day. Uh so uh yeah usually an intense day.

Nicolola Tangen: M and how do you relax?

Gilles Andrier: So relaxing I do a few things. Uh I do uh yeah I do a bit of I do a lot of sports you know cycling uh running in the past but the knees gave up a bit so the cycling is softer for the knees. So a lot and that's actually uh you know cycling for uh for a few hours it's very interesting because it's almost uh thoughts come pop up as you cycle and it's a very almost uh uh you know relax how do you say meditation time on on the bicycling on the bicycle uh I've got many children I've got six children so uh interacting with them enjoying I'm a very lucky guy from that standpoint and we have a wonderful happy family um wonderful wife and that's also part of what I enjoy and relax but it's tough to be a CEO for 21 years. Yeah, I know you you are going to become the chairman in the same company, so that's good. But um and then you were um kind of traveling around Europe uh with a big uh rib, right, with your family, you know?

Nicolola Tangen: Yeah.

Nicolola Tangen: Driving through the Mediterranean. Uh it's a different type of holiday.

Gilles Andrier: Yeah. So, uh yeah, I used to do a lot of sailing when I was much younger, but you need a bit more time to sell boats, riatas, and all of that. So, and we love the sea with the family. So, for many years we we A rib is a semi-inflatable boat and going adventure, you know, two engines putting all the kids on the boat, one bag each and going from the south coast of France all the way down to Sicily back to all the coastline of and we did that five, six, seven years in a row, stopping in hotels. Um, and it's a lot of fun because it's it's quite adventurous. uh and it's about you know enjoying enjoying life together.

Nicolola Tangen: So when you are in a restaurant and you are like a smell and taste family you know with a perfumemer as a wife and and you hear how do you how do you eat? I mean it's just like hey uh smell this uh basil uh hey look at that tomato is different than other tomatoes. come in.

Gilles Andrier: No, no, no. It's not an obsessive thing where you have you have to talk taste and smell every day on everything that you that you uh actually funny enough my my wife who is a a perfumer. Um okay, maybe it has to do with DNA and so forth, her mother was an absolutely outstanding cook and so maybe there is something around around that that went uh uh that went there. My my son, you know, would like to also be a perfumer. So there is something maybe in there. Um but we yeah we we we we try not to talk too much about taste and smell at every meal together. We we love cooking. I love cooking. That's how also I relax uh experimenting things and

Nicolola Tangen: having fun.

Nicolola Tangen: And what is your adi advice to your six children and to other young people who listen to this podcast?

Gilles Andrier: Well uh yeah first you know as I move uh to the German role you know what I think uh I will be missing but I will make sure that I don't miss it by continuously be engaged is um really being engaged with people you know we are in a business where I've been extremely grateful I'm extremely grateful because this huge diversity of clients where you have to go deep into what they are doing Um but in the same way with employees and I've always been extremely let's say engaged by interacting giving trying to give advice but also listening to the young to the to the ones who are developing uh at Jivodon

Gilles Andrier: uh and the same way I would say that I would say the same thing to my kids which I which I do which is a few things which have worked out for me and I'm not somebody who is very much into management books and giving lectures and dogmas about you know what they should do and so forth. I call that find your own suit. You know, when I became a CEO, I had a thousand people telling me what to do as a CEO. And even though I was quite young, I really, you know, uh yeah, listen, but at the same time wanted to go my own way and be confident about that and and grow my own suit. So, a few things and a few advice. First, don't plan your careers by saying I want to be a CEO. That's the best way not to become a CEO. And it's not a goal by itself. It has never been a goal for myself. What has been driving me is to enjoy every day of any job I was given.

Gilles Andrier: Um and uh having an impact uh rather than status or whatever things and so um I'm extremely curious. So I think that has also helped me. Curiosity is the best friend for many jobs. Um and I think fulfilling this curiosity allows to engage, allows to learn, allows to ask questions but allows to listen. Um and I think that's another advice I would give. Third advice is uh uh yeah in the same way planning your core is I don't think it's the right thing to do but at the same time it's very important to experiment. you know, my kids, and I guess it's the it's it's the case for many young people. How do I know what I want to do because I've never done it. So, it's all about experimenting, discovering yourself by by putting yourself into a situation where you're going to learn something, where you're going to learn something about you, what you like, what you don't like, or suddenly def discovering other muscles. I thought I was a super shy guy. I would never be able to sell one kilo of anything until I said okay I I'll I'll go and try and then you do it yourself you engage you and you discover that you you you maybe have grown the skills um so it's about experimenting and therefore it's about taking risks and I've in my career I've taken a lot of risk on every job you know uh jumping into the swimming pool by not really knowing what I was going to do but just using my trust my confidence and my brain and listening to to learn the job. So it's it's a lot about that I think which helps growing. But in the first place, enjoy what you do because if you do it if you do enjoy what you do, you're going to be motivated. If you are motivated, you're going to do a good job. It's going to show and you're going to grow.

Nicolola Tangen: Very good advice. Big thanks for being on the podcast. Big thanks for making the place better tasting and better smelling. Thank you very much.