We have shown once again our a bility to deliver industry leading, purpose-led growth with a long-term perspective. Throughout 2021, we made a number of strategic acquisitions which fully align to these key drivers. They include DDW, The Color House, a US-based natural colour company. The acquisition enables us to become the number two global player in natural colours and continue our expansion into adjacent spaces. To expand our presence with local and regional customers, as well as grow our capabilities in natural perfumes, we acquired Custom Essence, a US-based fragrance creation house. We also acquired 25% of b.kolormakeup & skincare’s shares, aligned with our 2025 ambitions to keep expanding in skin care and make-up. This builds on the other acquisitions we have made to support our local and regional strategy including Expressions Parfumées, Fragrance Oils and drom, which have proven to be successful additions to the portfolio. Finally, we agreed a joint venture with Privi India to further strengthen our manufacturing footprint in India and bolster production capabilities for our global speciality fragrance ingredients. We also continued to make good progress with our programme to fully integrate acquired companies with Givaudan systems, processes and organisation. A We’ve identified digital innovation as a k ey enabler for our 2025 strategy. What were some of the investments made here? GA Ye s, we see digital innovation as a key enabler to keep our customers at the centre of everything we do and support the business to meet our ambitious mid- and long-term goals. We acquired Myrissi to strengthen our artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, so we now have an exciting AI tool capable of translating fragrances into consumer-relevant colour patterns and images as well as predicting the end consumer’s emotional response. Helping us to capture digital opportunities for fragrance creation in China, we entered into a partnership with Tmall, the Alibaba group’s open business-to-consumer (B2C) platform. We also opened a new Digital Space in China, one of the most digitalised of markets, allowing us to leverage transformation opportunities and to support growth with local and regional customers. The dedicated space will enable our digital innovation teams, working alongside regional and local business teams, to identify opportunities and leverage technologies to co-create the products and services of tomorrow. A With the shift to more flexible and hybrid ways of working as a result of the pandemic, what is Givaudan’s approach? GA Th e pandemic has brought many opportunities to do things differently, and we’ve wanted to take the learnings and experiences and turn them into positives for the future. One area is flexible working. Like many businesses, we’ve seen proof of the benefits of having more flexibility while also continuing to balance the needs of the business. The new ways of working adopted during the pandemic increased touchpoints with colleagues and customers and helped us to be even more inclusive. In support of our People purpose goal to be a place where we all love to be and grow, and taking the learnings from the pandemic, we have developed a Flexible Working Framework and toolkit to support local HR and sites to implement locally. We will continue to build on the experience and learnings of this period to take forward with us. A How is Givaudan approaching leadership development and succession planning? GA We h ave a well-established leadership development programme to nurture talent from within the Company, which has been redesigned to reflect our changing business and ensure we develop leaders with the right skills and behaviours for the future workplace. With our strong focus on succession planning and the quality of our leaders, where we’ve evolved our senior leadership teams in Fragrance & Beauty and Taste & Wellbeing in 2021, we’ve been able to do this from within the Company. A Lo oking ahead to 2022, what will the year bring? GA I am excited for the year ahead as we continue to implement our 2025 strategy and mak e progress on our purpose targets. While we anticipate further disruptions from the pandemic and other supply chains that are not distinct to our industry, we have robust plans in place to adapt accordingly. We take confidence from how we have managed through the last two years in continuing to be a resilient business. We have a clear plan in place and, combined with the talent and passion of our fantastic colleagues around the world, we remain positive about the year ahead. Givaudan – 2021 Integrated Annual Report A year in review CE O interview 15 A year in review