Nicola Tainen, CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, interviews Gilles Andrier, who has served as CEO of Givaudan for 21 years. Givaudan is the world's leading company in flavors, fragrances, and scents, operating a renowned R&D center in Switzerland.

The conversation explores Givaudan's business model, from perfume creation processes to flavor development, and examines the company's culture and leadership principles. Andrier discusses the competitive briefing process, the skills required for perfumers, and how the company has maintained consistent performance over two decades of five-year strategic cycles.

The Competitive World of Fragrance Creation

Fragrance development begins with competitive briefs where multiple fragrance houses compete, involving co-development between client and Givaudan to define target consumers and positioning.

Givaudan's 200 perfumers worldwide work through a funnel process with clients, conducting consumer tests and refinements that can span from three weeks for small clients to three years for major projects.

"You are in competition, you, as an individual perfumer, you're going to lose a brief nine times out of ten or eight times out of ten" - Gilles, emphasizing the high rejection rate perfumers face.

Givaudan's Perfumery School Dominance

The Givaudan perfumery school, established almost 80 years ago, has trained perfumers who created 40% of all perfumes sold globally.

Perfumer selection focuses on passion and resilience over just olfactory ability: "Even if you have the perfect ear, does it make you a Mozart? I don't know" - Gilles.

Successful perfumers need exceptional persistence and creativity to handle continuous rejection and maintain confidence for the next brief.

The Science of Flavors vs Fragrances

Flavors require replacing volatiles and top notes lost during food packaging processes to recreate the fresh taste consumers expect from products like strawberry yogurt.

"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" - Gilles, explaining duration differences.

Flavor impact occurs within seconds or minutes, focusing entirely on initial taste experience rather than the extended dry-down phases of fragrances.

Leadership Through Ambitious Goal-Setting

Givaudan operates on five-year strategic cycles and has consistently delivered on all commitments throughout Andrier's 21-year tenure as CEO.

"Not being shy about setting ambitious targets, which look intimidating, but that's the only way you're going to get to them or close to them" - Gilles on his leadership philosophy.

The company culture reflects performance-driven, creative, caring, and accessible values that align with Andrier's personal characteristics and Givaudan's core DNA.