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Relationships

"I enjoyed working with Chris both as a peer and as President of the Division; I was inspired by his leadership, his openness and communication style and ability to manage key corporate stakeholders."  

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Firmenich Global Flavors Senior Executive

Chief Executive Experience Related to Board Activity

As President of Firmenich Flavors, I served on several group operating committees including:

 

Investment - Challenging and approving investment based on strong business cases, ensuring regular performance reviews against milestones, reallocating investment and looking into new opportunity whether technology, channel, or geographical (e.g. new manufacturing capabilities in LATAM, new offices in Nigeria, or a new development entity in California focusing on a new channel).

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Ethics - Ensure that group ethics are upheld and evolve in line with the evolution of the business into new channels, categories, and geographies (e.g. emerging markets). Being a role model within the group and advocating compliance at all town hall and employee engagement events.

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Risk - Focus on the traditional as well as more disruptive risks that could impact on the ongoing sustainability of the business (e.g. regulations, macro issues such as Brexit, AI implications on product development and design, sustainability, and continuity of supply).

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M&A - Part of the smaller subset of the senior team, responsible for sponsoring projects with business cases, updating the team on progress against integration plans, and challenging the validity of proposals based on group priorities for investment.

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Global and Regulatory Compliance - Represented Firmenich as part of the IOFI (International Organisation of the Flavor Industry), ensuring that the necessary lobbying occurred to defend the interests of the industry from global and regional governing bodies. This group was represented by the Top 10 global Flavor industry players from both the private and public sectors.

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Flavor Advisory Board  - Created from a group of external industry experts taken from the commercial and research global community. This group ensured the right level of challenge and insights were being brought to help direct the future direction of the division. The FAB was able to attract people from other company boards, the academic market, former competitor senior leaders and customers, and was rotated based on strategic needs and focus. I leveraged the Board to bring to the Corporate Board a neutral perspective on the divisional vision and strategy, based on external perspective re-framing of the division's activities. This helped support new commercial partnerships and extended the brief of the M&A strategy.

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Business Relationships

  • Consultants - Throughout my career, I have developed strong relationships with global consulting players, such as Bain & Co, Mars, Helbling, Roland Berger, and McKinsey, from strategic projects such as divisional redefinition to more operational projects (e.g. LEAN).

  • Customers - I have developed an extensive list of business contacts while at FIRMENICH, having worked with significantly influential regional and international executives representing the major food and beverage companies of the world. 

  • Investments and Banking - I have also expanded my network to include PE and VC companies and banks in light of recent work in and around M&A, which has been global, having closed deals in Europe, Africa, and the US. I have refined my skills significantly when working with M&A targets, from not just private holdings to the public also, managing many key stakeholders through the process, from dealing with investors to privately held, family-owned companies, to hosting town hall meetings in manufacturing sites of acquired businesses.

© 2020 by Chris Millington

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