Gilles Andrier

Overview

Gilles Andrier
Born	1961 (age 64–65) Paris, France
Citizenship	France
Education	Engineering
Alma mater	École nationale supérieure d'ingénieurs de Toulouse
Occupation	Business executive
Employer	Givaudan
Known for	Chief Executive Officer of Givaudan
Title	Chief Executive Officer of Givaudan
Term	2005–2026
Board member of	Maus Frères SA; Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce; Natural Resources Stewardship Circle
Spouse	Daniela Andrier (née Roche)
Children	4
Awards	Fragrance Foundation Hall of Fame (2024)

🌐 Gilles Andrier (born 1961) is a French business executive who has served as chief executive officer (CEO) of Givaudan, the Swiss fragrance and flavours company, since 2005. During his tenure he has overseen rapid international expansion through more than twenty acquisitions and sustained organic growth, helping to transform Givaudan into one of the world's leading fragrance and flavour suppliers by revenue and market capitalisation. Known for combining an engineering background with a strong interest in creativity and sensory experiences, he has articulated a leadership philosophy centred on curiosity, humility and collaborative innovation, and has been recognised by bodies such as the Fragrance Foundation, which inducted him into its Hall of Fame, and by business rankings including Harvard Business Review's list of high-performing chief executives. In 2025 Givaudan announced that he would step down as CEO in March 2026 and that the board intended to propose him as its next chairman, marking a transition from executive to non-executive leadership after more than three decades with the group.

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Early life and education

👶 Family background and early years. Andrier was born in 1961 in Paris into a French family, the son of an engineer whose work took the family to a succession of overseas postings. Growing up in different countries exposed him to varied cultures and ways of life, an experience he has later described as shaping his sense of curiosity and his comfort with international environments.

🎓 Engineering studies and move into consulting. After completing secondary schooling, Andrier studied engineering and obtained two master’s degrees from the École nationale supérieure d'ingénieurs de Toulouse, a French grande école specialising in engineering disciplines. Although technically trained, he was drawn to broader business questions and in the 1980s joined the consultancy that would become Accenture, where he spent around eight years advising corporate clients on strategy and operations. The consulting role sharpened his analytical skills, but he later chose to leave professional services for the fragrance industry, viewing it as an opportunity to combine quantitative discipline with a more creative, sensory business, a transition that would culminate in his joining Givaudan in the early 1990s.

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Career

🏭 Early roles at Givaudan. Andrier joined Givaudan in 1993 as controller of the fragrance division and executive assistant to then chief executive Jean Amic, giving him an early vantage point on both the financial and strategic management of the business. One of his first major assignments was to help integrate the merger of Givaudan with the French perfume house Roure, a complex combination that he was credited with handling smoothly. In 1997 he was appointed head of the group’s North American fragrance operations, where he led a significant restructuring that included closing an ageing plant in Clifton, New Jersey and overseeing the construction of a modern compounding facility in Mount Olive, New Jersey, while also rationalising the regional organisation. After returning to Europe in 2000 to run the consumer products fragrance business, he opened a new fine fragrance creative centre in Paris and, by 2003, had been promoted to lead Givaudan’s global fine fragrance unit, broadening his exposure to both commercial and creative aspects of perfumery.

🤝 Appointment as chief executive and acquisition-led growth. In 2005, at the age of forty-three, Andrier was appointed chief executive officer of Givaudan, succeeding an earlier generation of leadership and becoming a relatively young insider chief at the company. Taking charge at a time of consolidation in the fragrance and flavours industry, he pursued a strategy that combined organic growth with targeted acquisitions. His most prominent early move came in 2006 with the acquisition of Quest International, a UK-based fragrances and flavours business, for around CHF 2.8 billion, a transaction that nearly doubled Givaudan’s size and significantly expanded its customer base. Andrier later described the integration of Quest as a “perfect fit” carried out “à la Givaudan, very humanly”, emphasising attention to people and culture alongside financial metrics, and this approach became a model for subsequent deals.

📈 Expansion, scale and financial performance. Over the following two decades, Givaudan under Andrier completed more than twenty acquisitions in areas ranging from gourmet flavours to cosmetic ingredients, while also investing heavily in its existing businesses. The group moved into adjacent fields such as active beauty and health and wellness, reflecting a broader conception of its role in helping customers create multisensory consumer experiences. In numerical terms, Givaudan’s headcount grew from roughly 5,900 employees and CHF 2.7 billion in annual sales at the time he took over to nearly 17,000 employees and more than CHF 7.4 billion in revenue two decades later, while its market capitalisation increased from around CHF 5.8 billion to approximately CHF 36 billion, making it one of Switzerland’s largest listed companies. Between 2019 and 2023, a period that included the COVID-19 pandemic, the business recorded around 60 per cent organic growth, and Andrier’s performance placed him on Harvard Business Review's 2019 list of top-performing CEOs globally.

🌍 Transition from executive leadership. After nearly twenty years as chief executive, Givaudan announced in 2025 that Andrier would retire from the CEO role in March 2026 and that the board planned to propose him as its next non-executive chairman, subject to shareholder approval. The succession plan was presented as a way of maintaining continuity in the company’s strategic direction while enabling a new generation of executives to assume day-to-day management. By the time of this planned transition, Givaudan had become, by most industry measures, the largest global player in fragrances and flavours, and Andrier was widely identified with the modernisation and internationalisation of a business that traces its roots to an eighteenth-century Swiss perfumery house.

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Leadership and management style

🧭 Curiosity, humility and people focus. Andrier’s leadership style has frequently been described in terms of curiosity and engagement with others. He has said that “curiosity is the greatest strength I’ve had in all my jobs”, arguing that genuine interest in people and their ideas is essential for building a shared sense of purpose inside a company. Colleagues quoted in industry profiles depict him as approachable and trusted, while also noting that he is demanding in pursuit of clear answers and performance, a combination that has underpinned what he characterises as a high-performance culture at Givaudan. At the same time he emphasises humility, stating that a chief executive should not pretend to have all the answers and should remain open to learning throughout a tenure at the top of an organisation.

💡 Evolution in the chief executive role. Reflecting on his early years as CEO, Andrier has recalled feeling “a bit intimidated” by the role and initially acting in a highly cautious manner, focused on living up to an abstract idea of what a chief executive should be. Over time he has said he learned to be more authentic, regarding leadership less as a formal position and more as an opportunity to enable others, and he has encouraged managers to experiment and “never be afraid of doing things differently” when circumstances change. This evolution has informed his insistence that Givaudan remain a learning organisation, capable of adapting to new consumer preferences, technologies and regulatory expectations while preserving the core expertise of its perfumers and flavourists.

⛵ Influences, innovation and client collaboration. Andrier often links his management approach to formative experiences outside the boardroom, notably his years as a competitive sailor, where he learned the importance of teamwork, mutual trust and calm decision-making in unpredictable conditions. He also draws parallels between music and perfume, describing how a “magical piece of music” and a well-constructed fragrance can both evoke powerful emotions, an analogy that reflects his interest in the artistic side of an industry often viewed through a chemical or financial lens. Under his leadership Givaudan has typically devoted around ten per cent of its revenues to research and development, including investment in sensory science, biotechnology and sustainability initiatives, and he has promoted close collaboration with clients to co-create products, saying that he feels a strong personal responsibility for the outcome of each major project.

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Financials and board roles

💰 Compensation, shareholdings and wealth. As chief executive of a company included in Switzerland’s main equity index, Andrier has received a remuneration package in the mid- to high single-digit millions of Swiss francs in recent years. Givaudan’s 2024 compensation report stated that his total pay for that year, including base salary, bonus and share-based incentives, was about CHF 6.8 million, a level that places him above the median for comparable European industrial CEOs. His personal equity stake in Givaudan is modest in percentage terms: at the end of 2024 he held around 5,380 shares, equivalent to roughly 0.06 per cent of the company’s capital, an interest valued at about CHF 20 million at prevailing market prices. MarketScreener has estimated his personal net worth at approximately US$23 million as of late 2025, largely reflecting the accumulated value of his Givaudan shares and past compensation, and there is little public evidence of conspicuous consumption or celebrity-style wealth management.

🏛️ Non-executive positions and external engagements. Beyond his executive responsibilities at Givaudan, Andrier has held a number of board and advisory roles. He serves as an independent director of Maus Frères SA, the privately held Swiss retail group that controls brands such as Lacoste, and has sat on the board of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, reflecting his experience in both European and North American markets. In addition he co-chairs the Natural Resources Stewardship Circle, an industry initiative devoted to sustainable sourcing of raw materials used in beauty and flavour products, and he has previously been a director of Albéa, a cosmetics packaging company, among other mandates. Through these functions he participates in debates on corporate governance, trade and environmental stewardship that reach beyond the confines of Givaudan itself, while reinforcing the company’s links to sectors such as luxury retail and consumer goods.

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Personal life

❤️ Family and partnership with a perfumer. Andrier is married to Daniela Andrier (née Roche), a perfumer who has created fragrances for brands such as Prada and Maison Margiela and who holds the position of vice-president perfumer at Givaudan. The couple met through their work in perfumery and are often cited within the industry as an example of a professional and personal partnership built around a shared passion for scent, though Daniela typically works from her own laboratory in Paris in order to preserve an independent creative space. They have four children together, and Andrier has said that his wife’s understanding of the perfumers’ perspective has enriched his own view of the business and its creative process.

🚴 Interests and personal characteristics. Outside work, Andrier is described as energetic and informal. He has a long-standing interest in sport, particularly cycling, which he practises to stay active, and he enjoys travelling with his family. Music is another recurring theme in his interviews, and he has said that he often listens to music and thinks about the parallels between composing a melody and constructing a fragrance, both of which, in his view, require a sense of harmony and emotional resonance. Colleagues and profile writers note that despite leading a multinational group valued in the tens of billions of francs, he tends to maintain an unpretentious demeanour, taking time to visit laboratories and production sites and engaging in conversation with staff at multiple levels of the organisation, aided by his fluency in several languages and his comfort in international settings.

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Challenges and controversies

⚖️ Antitrust investigations in the fragrance industry. A major test of Givaudan’s governance during Andrier’s tenure emerged in 2023, when European and Swiss competition authorities launched coordinated investigations into alleged anti-competitive practices in the fragrance ingredients sector. Givaudan confirmed that it was among the companies subject to raids and inquiries by regulators in the European Union, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and stated that it was cooperating fully with the authorities. As of early 2026 no final decisions had been announced, and Andrier himself had not been personally accused of wrongdoing, but observers noted that any findings of collusion or price-fixing could have reputational consequences for the company and for the wider industry.

🌱 Sustainability, resources and diversity. Andrier has positioned sustainability as a strategic priority for Givaudan, acknowledging that the fragrance and flavours business depends heavily on natural resources and on farming communities around the world. Under his leadership the company has set targets to reduce its carbon emissions by 70 per cent from 2015 levels by 2030 and to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, and has invested in green chemistry and biotechnological routes that use renewable carbon sources such as sugar rather than petrochemicals. He has also highlighted the importance of biodiversity and ethical sourcing, pointing to initiatives run through the Givaudan Foundation that support smallholder farmers and local communities supplying key ingredients. In human-resources policy he has been a proponent of diversity and inclusion, arguing that a global consumer business cannot be run with a “monolithic way of thinking” and setting objectives for women and leaders from high-growth markets to account for at least half of senior management positions by 2030, alongside participation in industry forums such as the European Value of Beauty Alliance.

🦠 Acquisition strategy and response to crises. The scale of Givaudan’s deal-making under Andrier has occasionally prompted questions from analysts and investors about integration risks and the potential strain on margins, but he has argued that each transaction is carefully selected to complement the existing portfolio and is integrated in what he calls the “Givaudan way”, with particular attention to respecting the strengths of acquired companies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when supply chains were disrupted and demand patterns shifted, the group adapted by prioritising products linked to health, hygiene and everyday consumer staples, and it avoided large-scale redundancies while continuing to invest in strategic projects. In subsequent years Andrier referred to the period as demonstrating the “resilience and passion” of Givaudan’s workforce, framing the experience as evidence that the company’s culture could absorb shocks while remaining focused on long-term objectives.

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Legacy and honours

🏅 Impact on Givaudan and the fragrance industry. Commentators generally characterise Andrier’s legacy at Givaudan as a combination of substantial growth and a sustained emphasis on the craft of perfumery and flavour creation. Over more than thirty years with the company he has helped shape what Givaudan presents as a modern incarnation of a business with roots dating back over 250 years, broadening its geographic and segment footprint while seeking to preserve the central role of perfumers, flavourists and creative centres within the corporate structure. Under his leadership the firm became one of the world’s largest fragrance and flavours suppliers by sales and market value, and it has often been cited by industry observers as a reference case in balancing tradition with innovation in a specialist business-to-business segment of the consumer goods value chain.

📚 Awards, recognition and reflections on leadership. In addition to business rankings such as Harvard Business Review's list of top-performing chief executives, Andrier has received honours from within the fragrance community, notably becoming in 2024 the first executive from a fragrance house to be inducted into the Fragrance Foundation’s Hall of Fame. Accepting the award, he characterised it as a recognition of the perfumers and craftspeople at the heart of the industry rather than of an individual manager, and he has often spoken of feeling “lucky” to work in a field that connects memories, feelings and emotions through scent. As he prepares to move into a prospective non-executive role, commentary on his career typically highlights both the financial expansion achieved under his leadership and the cadre of successors he has mentored, framing his tenure as an example of long-term stewardship in a specialised global industry.

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