HIGHLIGHTS: Gilles Andrier - CEO of Givaudan

What It Covers

Nicolai Tangen interviews Givaudan CEO Gilles Andrier at the company's Swiss R&D center, covering how the world's leading flavor and fragrance company creates scents, develops talent, and sustains performance across four consecutive five-year strategic cycles.

Key Questions Answered

• •Fragrance Development Process: Givaudan operates through competitive briefs where multiple perfumers simultaneously develop concepts for clients like Tom Ford. Projects range from three weeks to three years, with teams from New York and Paris running parallel creative funnels before consumer testing determines the winner.
• •Perfumer Success Rate: Individual perfumers lose roughly 80–90% of the briefs they compete for, making resilience and psychological recovery as critical as creative talent. Givaudan's selection process prioritizes sustained passion over raw olfactory ability, since nearly everyone has a functional sense of smell.
• •Talent Pipeline Scale: Givaudan's in-house perfumery school, operating for nearly 80 years, has trained the creators behind approximately 40% of all perfumes sold globally. This proprietary talent pipeline represents a structural competitive advantage that cannot be replicated quickly by rivals.
• •Five-Year Planning Discipline: Andrier runs Givaudan on consecutive five-year cycles — four completed to date — committing publicly to ambitious targets each time and delivering on all of them. He attributes this track record to setting intimidating goals deliberately, arguing proximity to a stretch target outperforms comfortable planning.