Pushing Sustainability Forward

On July 1st, Jean-François Pascal took on his new role as Vice President Corporate Sustainability. This new position has been created to drive the transformation of our company towards sustainability and to bring our new Sustainability Agenda CARE BEYOND SKIN to life, creating a meaningful impact for consumers, society and the environment.

Jean-Francois has been with Beiersdorf since 1994 and has gained a wealth of experience during this time, both in central functions at our headquarters in Hamburg and abroad. After several years as Marketing Director in France and Brazil, he managed the NIVEA Body Care and Creme business as a Global Marketing Head in Hamburg. He transferred to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2012 as General Manager for the Southern Cone region. In 2014, the Frenchman moved to Paris, where he acted as General Manager for France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

We met Jean-François and asked him about his new role, his motivation and his goals.

Sustainability is one of the big topics of our time, if not the biggest one. It is a major challenge and is becoming increasingly important in all areas of our lives: of course for the global society and our entire planet, but also for our daily business. During the past years in France I experienced how much consumers and trade have oriented themselves towards sustainability and how demanding they are in this area.

With regard to Beiersdorf, sustainability has always been part of our company DNA. With CARE BEYOND SKIN we have put the topic now more into our focus. This will help us to lead Beiersdorf into the right direction. I am very much looking forward to tackling this important and complex challenge and to shaping our sustainability actions going forward. I see sustainability as a great chance to accelerate our C.A.R.E.+ strategy.

First of all, I think it is essential that all our employees around the world are aware of our Sustainability Agenda CARE BEYOND SKIN. Everybody must be familiar with our seven focus areas, understand them well and know the concrete targets we have set ourselves for 2025. Only then, we can identify the right opportunities in our daily work – and all together drive the change that’s needed.

Then I find it important that we don’t just keep pace with market developments, but move ahead. For this, we need innovative concepts and we must then put them into action with speed and agility. We have strong pledges and commitments in place thanks to the great work of the team. And, we have employees all around the world, who drive sustainability forward with great passion, strong commitment and determination. I am convinced that we can manage the transformation of our company quite well with these assets at hand.

My task is to push the transformation of the company forward and to ensure that investments are made into relevant sustainability initiatives. Beyond this, I want to strengthen the sustainability image for Beiersdorf and our brands. Making our sustainability communication more visible to our audiences both internally and externally, and easier to understand – this is something I have set myself as a target. I want to work on this together with our communication experts.

Jean-François, thank you very much for the interview and these valuable insights!

Katrin has been working at Beiersdorf since 2003. After various positions in marketing, strategy, digital and PR, she is since September 2018 Senior Communication Manager and responsible for the topic of sustainability. For Katrin, sustainability has a high personal relevance, since it changes the world for the better – and she contributes by communicating about it. Her communication is very passionate and she tries to also push the topic forward. In her private life, she is constantly seeking new ways and means to live a more sustainable lifestyle and inspire others with it.