President and CEO, AAK AB (publ)
AAK CMD 2020 – Johan Westman, President and CEO – The AAK Purpose
AAK's Capital Market Day is a recurring event where analysts, investors, and media representatives are presented with information on AAK's business strategies as well as financial updates.
In 2020, the Capital Market Day was a virtual event. On this link, watch Johan Westman, President and CEO, reveal the AAK Purpose.
About Johan Westman
Johan Westman, President and CEO of AAK, has presented strategic and financial updates at the company’s Capital Markets Days. At the 2024 event, Westman described a “positive trend” in plant-based food, technical products, and personal care, noting that AAK views replacing fossil-based ingredients in products such as candles and cosmetics as a “huge opportunity.” He stated that the company has a “strong track record” of earnings growth and has updated its EBIT per kilo target to “above 3 SEK per kilo,” having reached a prior target faster than anticipated. Westman attributed the company’s recent performance to a decentralized and agile organization that has navigated “high uncertainty, volatility, inflation, and war,” as he noted in 2022. He also highlighted investments in sustainability, including bio boilers in Aarhus, Denmark, a partnership with Mars to support women in West Africa, and commitments to no deforestation and science-based targets. Westman reaffirmed a goal of 10% annual operating profit growth, calling it a “bold target” that the company has historically achieved.
Transcript (10 segments)
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Johan Westman0:16
Good day. I am Johan Westman, the President and CEO of AAK.
Today, I will uncover the purpose, the newly developed purpose for AAK. We have decided to transform AAK to a purpose-led company with a purpose that will constantly pull us forward.
Why do we need a purpose? A purpose for us is about how to engage stakeholders, how to commit our organization, how to mobilize our people, how to attract talent, and also about how to really help our customers, really engage our customers. That's what a purpose is all about.
Our process to develop this purpose has truly been an inclusive process. We've got some help from more than a thousand employees in interviews, in workshops, and that has given us an enormous and valuable insight bank.
When looking into that insight bank, let me share with you some quotes that you can read on this page. Many of the quotes, the insights, have been about how we are doing things better, how can we make things better. A lot is also about within AAK, how can we get things done, our passion to get things done, about making things happen in the way we work, in the way we interact with our customers. With those insights, it led us into the purpose that I will now present.
We are AAK. We are making better happen.
This purpose has a great potential. Let me share with you some of the examples of the power in our purpose, a purpose that will never run out of potential. About committing and engaging our organization, making better behaviors happen. How do we transform and develop, nurture our culture, making better leadership happen. How do we act as leaders, how do we develop our colleagues, and about attracting talent, retaining talent, making better careers happen within AAK. And of course, the potential and power in our interaction with our customers: how to make better solutions happen, better collaboration happen. Our co-development approach when we work together with our customers to deliver better solutions—that's what it's all about. It's also about helping our customers, making better success stories happen, our customers' success. And last but not least, the shareholder value creation, about sustainable shareholder value creation, making better returns happen, but also making better livelihoods happen throughout the supply chains where we are active. There are many more examples, but this is just to show a few that really highlights the strong potential in making better happen.
This purpose has also the potential to be far more ambitious than claiming to be the best or striving to be the best. When we are really good at something, we might even be the best. Now, we will constantly ask ourselves: can we make it even better, can we perform even better? So, with that, making better happen every day, every week, every year—it's a very ambitious purpose that pulls us forward.
To summarize this, we have made a short film that we will show you now. Making better happen is in the DNA of our people, a desire to redefine what better means. Everything we do is based on understanding what better means for our customers. We make their products healthier, more nutritious, more sustainable, and we help achieve better process efficiency with more effective plant-based oils. There's an action in making better happen, and at the same time, there is a humbleness of better in contrast to the boasting of best. Don't let best stand in the way of better. Better has the potential to be more ambitious than best. You can't have this purpose and be complacent. Best is a state; doing better is a journey of continuous improvement. No matter where we look, making better happen can cover it: in sustainability through better sourcing, in production through better efficiency, for people through a better career.
This purpose will never run out of potential. I hope that you are as passionate as I am about the future for AAK. We are making better happen. Thank you for listening.