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EUROPE Winner...
OLIVIER CAIX France
CEO of DIANA Group CEO INSIGHT Q
What are your most important professional achievements at your current company?
The last 6 years leading DIANA have been very exciting. DIANA is an entrepreneurial journey and my role as C.E.O has been first to frame a shared dream, a sort of long-term undertaking, to draw the field in which we want to play in 10 years from now… pilot the growth and support execution by ensuring that people have the right profile and level of engagement to the success…
Creating value for a Business to Business company like DIANA, dedicated to consumer markets, means some deeper understanding, a little bit more than just saying, “I want to focus on specialties and give up commodities businesses…” or its upgrade version “I want to focus on growing businesses….”
Q
It first started with defining what our strategic intent was:
What is the purpose of DIANA? Why could it be successful?
The first answer seemed obvious but is not that logical in a world of engineers. Our first “raison d’être” is to provide wellness to final consumers. We are not selling directly to consumers but to the Food and Cosmetics industries. Nevertheless, behind our products, our solutions aim at improving organoleptic performances, or even more, health and nutrition for pets, babies or people… It is always about providing wellness… Your baby eats well her fresh and natural puree, then she smiles… You are so pleased and feeling better…
When I explained to our people that the second “raison d’être” of DIANA was to support our customer’s brands… They thought I was out of my mind: “we are not an advertising agency!” they answered. People thought that our job was just
to develop a new technical platform for an innovative colouring foodstuff or to improve the shelf life of a new prepared soup with natural ingredients…Yes for sure they were right, but at the end of day, everything must be aligned with our customer’s brands story… What dream do they offer and how can we make them more successful, help them to be more credible… This way of seeing the business change, the “rules of engagement” allowed DIANA to position itself as the preferred partner for a few number of big Food, Pet Food and Cosmetic companies around the world…
The last one, the one which makes the company really successful, what drives the execution upwards, leading to excellence… is us… We aim at offering to the people joining the company an exciting adventure… Yes, I said adventure! Somebody working for DIANA, building and starting a new plant in Canãs in Costa Rica, aged of 28… That is real adventure! … and as a member of a family he will get the support from the DIANA community but will be fully accountable of his successes and failures…which will make him become, day after day, a real entrepreneur.
DIANA’s unique positioning, this unrivalled customer intimacy with the key top leaders of our targeted platforms while conveying the DIANA folks… This is what I feel most proud of!
Q
Good, but what are the numbers behind the words?
DIANA has been quite successful for the last 5 years with a steady growth of around 8% per year driving to Ebitda which almost doubled in 5 years. Over 80% of the value creation came from organic growth but we also performed some acquisitions around the world to reinforce our sourcing and technological capabilities as well as boosting our development. DIANA keeps on targeting high growth countries and their local customers. In 2013, the Group
achieved €451m revenue one third of which in Emerging countries, twice more than in 2008.
Q
What has been the key drivers for success?
Intimacy with our customer is essential. That’s why we continue to adapt every day DIANA’s portfolio in line with our customers’ brands strategies and reinforce our partnerships. As I said, this is crucial! If you speak the language of your customers you can build a common story that ensures a sustainable relationship, your ability to translate an unmet customer need to a solution is key…
We prioritise “innovation” within the company as a catalyst for growth. For that, we are investing significantly in Research & Development which now represents more than 15% of the Diana people. As well as investing in new disruptive technologies like Plant Cell Culture with the DianaPlantSciences creation in 2010 which positions Diana at the forefront of new technologies in the industry.
We act and lead our activities in order to become a true global partner for our customers, tracking and following them around the word, developing new sourcing or capabilities in Asia or Latin America… and finally contributing to attract and retain international new talents, ending up with a large majority of international people leading the company…
Finally, we devoted a significant part of our energy in developing a culture of excellence: permanent research for being stronger, always improving yourself in execution, in operations, in the services you provide to your customer and act in a responsible way…Respecting your values... meaning yourself!
Q
How do you go about achieving that?
After some years of life, I realized that to be successful and trustful I needed to give a sense to what I deeply undertook. To be able to share a dream, a vision, lead people and teams to go beyond the normal course of their life…
Once we agreed on the shared dream, our common values, how to act, once we candidly know and share the past failures and learning from them… Then, the path to follow becomes much easier: just being sure that every day actions will drive you in the right direction, even if it is not a straight and single line but you’re never moving further away or taking a step back from the collective goal, you’re always going forward.
I was lucky enough to spend 20 years of my career at Rhodia, a great company that offered me a very good learning spot on how to run a business in a global and challenging world, to learn from my failures and be boosted by my successes…. I was fortunate enough to meet exceptional people that have become my mentors. They gave me so much, provided me with opportunities and, crucially, they trusted me, they bet on me! As Ardian did in 2008, putting me at the head of Diana.
Q
What are the essentials being a (good) C.E.O.?
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I would say that a leader succeeds when he manages to sustainably change the normal course of life… the daily routine driving to a short end… the quiet and easy path “no change, no risk” strategy leading to death… while aiming to make the people being better, as your employees or the final consumers, aiming to make your company and your customers stronger, while acting responsibly by respecting yourself and your values…. This will always be rewarded!
FINANCE MONTHLY CEO AWARDS 2014
Olivier Caix, CEO of DIANA Group Website: www.diana-group.com