In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - Novonesis CEO: Biosolutions at Scale, Replacing Chemicals and Leading for a Healthier Planet

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

What actually happens inside a fermentation tank? Nicolai Tangen sits down with Ester Baiget, CEO of Novonesis, to explore the science and business behind enzymes. The company uses fermentation to create natural alternatives to chemicals found in the food we eat and products we use. From yogurt to bread to laundry detergent, Novonesis solutions are already in things you use every day. They discuss why European regulations slow down innovation, how the company finds the right microbes and enzymes for each customer need, and what makes employees so passionate about the mission. Ester also shares her leadership philosophy and what drives her as a leader. Tune in for an insightful conversation!In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday.  The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen, Sebastian Langvik-Hansen and Pål Huuse. Background research was conducted by Isabelle Karlsson. Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone, I'm Nicola Tangan, the CEO of the Norwegian Soban Wealth Fund, and today I'm here in a really good company with Esther Baygett, president and CEO of Novo Nes, which is one of my absolute favorite companies. Esther is leading the transformation to biosolutions, and which basically replaces chemicals with nature-based alternatives. And you'll have it in everything you eat, bread, to the stuff you use to clean your clothes, and basically Novonesis is part of

very many things in your life we own 2.5% of Nomenesis which is more than $700 million and we are just super excited to have you here, Esther. Thank you very much and delighted to be here, Nikolai. So let's just

start with the basics. What do you do? What do we do in Novenesses? I mean, you actually made a beautiful description of whom we are, Nikolai. We are the leading biosolutions company. We silently touch with our enzymes, with our microbes, more than 2 billion people every day, enabling a healthier life, enabling a healthier planet, enabling solutions that drive value for our customers, transforming the way that they produce and the foods that we eat.

But I mean, biosolution, what is it exactly? Yeah. And what is an enzyme? An enzyme is a protein that acts as a catalyst and makes things happen in life. You make enzymes. I make enzymes. Exist in nature, they're developed by nature. What we do in Nobonesis is we bring them up to scale in a professional way. We help nature to be better. Through bioengineering, through very high advanced analytics,

strain more than 100,000 microbes in our libraries, scale up capabilities, we take solutions inspired by nature and we bring that to scale, enabling then value added for our customers. And how do you produce these things? Through fermentation. You've got big tanks and you just ferment them? We have big tanks. We have really big tanks, but we also have tiny tanks.

What it's important is not only the fermentation, it's the finishing and bringing the right level of formatting for our customers. So anyone can ferment. you let bread in the bag and eventually it would mold. That's a fermentation. We ferment at a professional level. We only get that microbe or that protein that you're seeking for with the right level of performance. And then we stabilize it and put it in the right format for our customers.

It's not the same an enzyme that goes into detergent, that an enzyme that will enable a biofuel, that an enzyme that goes into baking or a probiotic that will go for gut health, culture that will enable dairy. Very different types of formats. How many different products do you make? Thousands, millions. I mean, we, from the, the products, it depends how you count them. If you count on what we ferment, or if you count on the way that we supply to the customer, which at the end is the final product. Because what makes us very unique as a company is our capability to connect customer needs with biosolutions. So we make Tyler-made solutions specific for our customer. And that's the combination of not only one solution,

we make what we call cocktails, which is blends of different enzymes or enzymes and yeast, that then they will drive that right level of performance at our customers. So what are the biggest industries you sell into? We are present in food and nutrition in dairy when you eat a yogurt, especially if you eat a high protein yogurt, extraordinary high likelihood that we are there enabling the taste, the texture, the palatability and healthiness, also with a competitive and high, reliable way of bringing productivity at our customer. If you eat bread, we are there enabling the Frenchness and the moldness with clean label.

When you go into biofuels, you fill up your car, well, not in Norway, mainly electrical here, but in the rest of the wall, in North America, in Latin America, in India, who is going volume in biofuels, we will be there. When you wash your clothes, we will be there on those detergents, allowing you to wash at low temperatures. That's the beauty of enzymes. They're catalytic. They don't need high temperature and energy to act. So you can wash your clothes at low temperature, get that level of cleaningness, saving energy and consumers, and at the same time, bringing biodegradability because our solutions absorbed by nature. Where do you replace kind of fossil-based chemical solutions?

Everywhere. Everything we do is go back to the fundamentals on answers that nature already develop. And then we brought chemistry, fossil-based solutions, to fulfill the needs of the society. And now, thanks to science and technology, we can master the art of nature and bring the solutions based on nature to fulfill the society needs. How big is this market that you're addressing here? Today, we're proud of whom we are. You're the biggest, right? Yeah, but we are, I would say, you could look at our market share and say, oh, we're very proud of our market share.

The way I like looking at it, it's a dressable market share. So yes, we have a very strong position on biosolutions. But if you look at the bios... So what is your market share? It's good. It is... You have to give us a number. It is strong.

It is, in some cases, it's... a very solid market share, the one that we have in some markets, we have a very strong position. As I said, if you look at dairy, extraordinary high level of probability that our solutions are there behind. If you look at biofuels, extraordinary high level of probability. I don't think we talk about market shares specifically. But the way I like looking at it, it is the biosolution market. It is a 60 billion market, and that's including amino acids, vitamins, broad range of solutions that you can produce on fermentation. But I really like to look at the specialty chemicals market, which is a trillion dollars market.

How fast are you growing? We're growing a high single digit. And that's also the space that we have put for midterm growth rates to continue to grow a bold market. We typically present in markets that they grow at 1 to 2%. That's the food market. That's the household care market. But we outgrow two, three, four times the markets that we present.

And why do you do that? Because we bring value for our customers. But I mean competition is trying to do the same, right? We grow much faster than the markets that we present because we are the partner to go with our customers on Biosolution. But why are you the partner to go? Why do they want to deal with you? Because we answer their needs through science, through innovation. We spend 10% of our revenue in R&D.

And then we have three things that makes us unique. We have a broad range. We're present in more than 30 different markets. We're global. We're really good listening to our customer needs. And then we have an amazing R&D machine to translate those needs into answers. And then we can bring them to scale. So when we connect these three, that puts in a good position to be the partner for growth for our customers.

We grow by volume, mainly. We also grow a little bit by price, but mainly through full. volume and we grow by penetrating in the markets that we're in. We typically are 1 to 5% of the codes of good salt of the products that our customers produce in a detergent, in a bread, in a dairy yogurt, in the biofuels, but we enable significant amount from the value. You cannot make microplastic replacement with cheaper microplastics. You cannot make low sugar added with cheaper sugar. You cannot improve the wash at lower temperatures. with cheaper surfactants.

This is the type of performance that we provide to our customers. Now, Novonesas is the merger of two companies, Christian Hansen and Nova Zimes. And I think it's kind of fun because those were two companies, which I followed when I was an equity analyst, and I loved both companies. And now you are one. Now, why is Denmark so strong in this industry, you think? There is a culture and probably a heritage of fermentation, embedded on the culture. I mean, actually, we just established a partnership with Noma, the restaurant, grew through bringing fermentation and the art of fermentation and functionalization of fruit.

And we have just created a partnership in that direction, showing the beauty of fermentation and how we can transform the wall. So there is a driver of heritage on culture and fermentation. Then there is strong foundations that continue to bring the reinvest and give back to the society. We're part of also. I mean, while main shareholder is also a foundation, the Novo Nordic Foundation. And we, and then there is an extraordinary network between universities, small enterprises, big pharma, biopharma companies that one fits the other and creates a hub of excellence of biotechnology and also competitiveness that continues to track the very best talent in the world.

What's the advantages of being part of the novo sphere, so to say? We are very thankful, and maybe that's also to you, to have long-term shareholders. That's a precious gift that gives us the right and then equips us to be able to make decisions thinking on the long-term value creation. So we're very thankful for that. At the same time, this also comes with a responsibility to deliver every day.

But do you get expertise and knowledge through these ownership and relationships? Well, from one side, the governance of the long-term shareholders allows you to make the right decisions in the long-term. And then the foundation network in Denmark, it reinvests back into talent.

It creates the pull, also for really good universities. It creates SMEs, small companies that they create the network of knowledge and understanding that makes it a very attractive place. But we are a global company. We're not only present in Denmark, and we have a strong brand in Denmark, but we see it growing rapidly also across the globe. How does regulation work in your industry? What kind of regulations are holding back your development or spurring them? We live in a wall that's very logical. The regulation that we have is based on the legacy of the past.

We're living and we framing a regulation which is based on chemical fossil-based solutions. And that's the path that we have to go through. This creates unnecessary roadblocks on speed of penetration of innovation. Biosolutions are biological. They are absorbed by nature. Still, they have to be treated and registered and assess, like, solutions that they are not biodegradable.

So we have to go through several steps that they're probably not adding any value, but just delaying the time. And some countries are better than others on creating a separate path for biosolutions. Which countries are good and which are bad? Let me give you a couple of examples. In Europe, it takes six to eight years to register a microbe to replace a fertilizer. In Brazil, you can do it in two. In Europe, it can take up to five years.

to register a protein, a novel protein, which is this nature, but we can bring up to scale through fermentation and give special nutrients or a muscle weight recovery faster or given functionalization. It takes five years. In Singapore, you can do it in six months. What about the US?

US, in many areas, it's faster. In proteins, you can do it in a couple of years. Still, you could do it much faster. Why is it so slow in Europe? It takes time to change. And now we are here bringing, exactly that voice of the value, the hidden potential of the untapped potential, not hidden, it's clear and it's visual and many countries see it, plus not only of bringing the answers

that the society is seeking for, but also as a job generation. So you and I, we met in Brussels at the EU Commission. How do you, how would you characterize the EU Commission work here? We're speaking the same language. I hear the language and I hear the, I feel the understanding that we have an unnecessary level of regulation or that grow blocks. I'm missing speed. I'm missing speed on the change and on the effectiveness.

But this is just, but what you do is just, isn't it just like good, good, good? I mean, it's healthy. Sorry, it's healthy. it's environmentally good and profitable yeah for you of course and for us but why would they not just want to stuff your things into everything

and that not only speaks for Europe it's for everywhere it's not only good good good good it's good for the environment if you would move to its full potential only the solutions exist today we would reduce the CO2 emissions of the planet 8%

no new solutions only the ones that exist today if we would continue and tap the potential of biosolutions as it is today. That will unleash 800 billion economic profit by 2025. This is homegrown solutions. You don't need chips. You don't need import NAFTA. It's based on biomass. So it's local jobs, homegrown solutions that drive and bring value for your customers and fulfill the consumer needs. Why is not happening faster? is exactly what we're bringing as loudly and hopefully

constructively also we see the pool some countries moving faster as you said US is moving China is moving boldly India is moving Europe is making the right noises we need speed

Can we just visit one of your factories So let's visit one of your factories now in Denmark right So we go into the door. And are these huge factories? Are they big? Are they just what do they?

How big are they? Everything is relative. I'm coming from the chemical industry. If you compare with a cracker, we're small. If you compare with a biofarmar, we're big. Okay. So we come into the door. Does it smell?

Does it smell like? No, no. No, it doesn't smell. Okay. And how many tanks do you have? I mean, like... It will depend on the plan. But if you go in a site like Kalenborg, you would enter.

I mean, it's big roads with a... cars and tracks. And our fermenters, they can be 300 cubic. So they're tall. They would be like a building. Okay. So what's in the tank? What kind of stuff is in the tank? It's biomass. And what is that? It's carbons. It's sugars. It is nutrients for the cultures. Okay. I see a curiosity. So what does it mean fermentation? So does it like bubble in there? Does you like bloop, bloop, bloop? Well, they're stainless steel. So when you enter in the plan, you would see lots of pipes. lots of, it's like a plant, an industrial plant, and you will see at the very end a big fermenter. By the way, it's not on the street, it's close.

Because, and also, especially, I mean, you have to think we're making solutions for biofuels, but for food. So they have fulfilled all the requirements for the different broad range of markets. And this stuff you have, how long is that inside the tanks? Those are batch processes. The processes can be from one day to two days, the batch fermentation. processes. That's the fermentation. But then afterwards, you go through the old process of separation. So separating the biomass, the microbes, from the enzymes and the proteins. That's when

we produce protein. When we, with the product that we sell, it's cultures, then it's a much smaller tanks and it goes directly as a culture as the answer. Am I confusing you? No, not to tell. So we make, we always do the same. We ferment. We feed sugars to the little Bucks, beautiful bucks. And then the microbes can be the answer, like what we sell in dairy for fermentation or in bioenergy, the yeast. Or we like the product that the microbes will make during the fermentation, which is the enzymes or the proteins. And then need to be separated. So the bigger the tank, the more profit you make, because it's cheaper per unit you produce. It depends. Microbes, they need smaller tanks because the answer, the product is the

microbes. So we want those microbes to be healthy, to be nice, to be. alive and fruitful for when they are supplied to our customers. When the product is the protein, then we like big tanks to have that fermentation. And at the end of the life of the batch process, then it's when we separate. So do you sell these things in small bottles or boxes or... We do everything. We sell them to little tiny pots, to really big containers that they would be shipped and supply directly to our customers and plucking plate.

So, first, if I brew beer, I need some of your things, right? If you do brear, we would use our yeast, or you would use also our microbes, or you would use our enzymes. You would use a combination of all our products to ferment or to bring that level of functionalization. If you make a non-alcohol beer, you would like the enzymes to be able to help you on that process beyond the physical process that you use. Do you eat a lot of these things yourself? I do. What kind of things do you eat? I mean, we don't need what we produce.

No, no. The probiotics. Oh, the probiotics, yes. These kind of things? Probiotics I do take. Yes. So what kind of things you eat that do you produce? What we produce, the only thing we consume exactly when we produce is the probiotics.

Yeah. That we supply bulk. Some customers, they would sell the probiotics, but we also produce probiotics that in U.S. We have a group of, we can sell directly to the practitioners, mainly in U.S., or in some other channels. What do I eat? I would eat the yogurts that our customers produce. I eat the bread, the beer,

and sausages. And I would also use the detergents. I would also bring in, well, I have an electrical car, but I would also put biofuels when we travel abroad and we will use all the detergent, the products that we use, somehow embedded there.

Okay. So let's say now I'm a baker and then I go to see you I say, hey, can you help me to make a good bread? Yes. So do you go into your library, then, and look at all your different cultures and we discuss it? Or how do we do it? First, we will look at what we have available.

And the magic here, it is what you want to achieve. You want to bring a spongibility, foamness, freshness. You want to make less sugar added, less salt, always without compromising costs. Everything we bring in, it's value added for our customers, a given feature. final formulation needs to be still competitive for the consumers. We will ask what is that you need and then we would play. Most probably will be with existing answers that we already have combined in a different way, tailor made for you. Maybe it's a completely different need and then we'll go through the innovation machine and yes, look at our strains, our libraries and bring in

the engineering that we will produce that exact protein that you're looking, that exact enzyme that you're seeking for. So when we go into your library, what does your library look like? Is that bottles or is it like? It is in the freezer, actually. And the beauty of our libraries. How big is your library? I mean, we have 100,000 strains in our libraries. They are not all in one place. And the beauty of it, it's like a library, actually. It's the same. It's not a bunch of books. It's how they are structured and how they are organized. What makes. it available. Same as you go to a library is not only that they have a ton of books, is that they can find exactly the one that you're looking for in a very fast way. That puts us in a very good

place also to embrace AI. AI is a tool. It's how you feed it what makes it powerful. The fact that we have all our strains perfectly documented and organized and we can link them to the performance of those proteins and those microbes at the field, that's the power when we combine this one that through advanced analytics, we accelerate and we unleash the value that we can produce. So one of the reasons why I think you have such a fantastic company is because what you produce is a very small part of the cost of the end product, right? So what would that be on average? So let's say now I'm a brewer or I'm a baker or I'm a deterring maker.

So the stuff I buy from you, how much would that cost? Typically, it's 1% to 5% of the cost of goods sold, but yet a big enabler of the value that our customers generate. decides the characteristics of your product or the product, right? It will bring, in a dairy product, will bring the palatability, the taste, the texture, and also improves yield and efficiency. In baking, it will define the sponginess in detergents. It will define the brightness, the cleaningness, the freshness.

In biofuels, it's what enables them to produce. So how difficult is it for the clients to change products, then, if they started to go with your product? I think the question is, why should they change? You have to give them a reason. or why would that change? Why would that change then? Only if you mess up.

We have to continue to invest on capacity. Typically every year we grow 2 to 5% on more volume simply by productivity, simply by improving the way that we produce,

simply by improving those strains. But then we outgrow our capacity to grow by productivity and we're investing to be there a partner of growth for our customers. So why would that change?

A reason would be if we cannot supply Once they change, you have to be there reliably for them. How much turnover do you have amongst your clients? We have long-term cast, I mean, stable relationships. So for instance, you do you do what it's called cheese for ennets, right? Yes. Which is the characteristics of the cheese.

So for instance, do you do Yaltzburg? Do you supply the Yaltzberg cheese? Are you the Yaltzburg people? Yelzburg. It's a Norwegian cheese. I would assume we do. but I'm very sorry to say, I don't know. I can tell you, and typically also we don't say the customers.

How many cheeses do you do? We enable the cultures for our customers to do cheese. And in cheese, we are in an extraordinary good place to supply our customers. So to your question on rotation, once we go into a customer, we stay. Because actually it's the opposite. We start small, and then it's when we start small. And then it's when we start talking, how can we help you more? I'll go on the example of dairy.

We enable your yogurt or cheese to be produced. But then, and that we bring through cultures, and then it comes with high protein, and we can help you with enzymes and make that texture, that flavor. But then also that product is more available, then maybe we can give you some good cultures that prevent bad cultures, foaming, fungi, to be preservatives, but natural, Okay, so now I'm a cheese factory. I'm buying your, you know, your rennet. I'm very happy with my cheese. Now, what do you do with the prices you charge me? Because you have brought in a new kind of price discipline to the company, I believe. We've always been very good when you say a new price discipline. Thank you for that. But let me just paddle back here. We have been always very good at pricing. You don't have 25% EBIT margin or 37% EBITA margin if you don't understand. If you don't understand. understand the value that you bring in and you don't price it correct. What we have brought as a discipline.

And just to explain the EBIT margin, that's basically how much, what percent of sales that you have as profits? Yes, thank you. And you, so every, so when you sell 100, you basically keep 25 as profits. We, we thought now that I was talking about the legacy, Novoza company, now we measure ourselves at EBITA margin, but we're on space of 37%, but that's a great description of how you're doing. So pricing, we've always understood the value that we bring for our customers.

And this is a relationship, a conversation based on trust. We understand the value, and then we price that is no value for them and no value for us. Because what we want to do is grow. What we have changed in the company, and that's the spin that you were hindering, Nikolai. It is we have this conversation every year. So not only when we launch, it's as the price, as the life of the product continues to move in, we continue to revitalize this conversation. So the pricing has moved from 1 to 2% erosion on the legacy in Novosheims to 1% contributed of revenue growth, simply by bringing the revitalization of price of the existing products and having that conversation of fair share of value with your customer once the contracts expire. You touched briefly on AI.

How is AI changing the way you work? We have been playing with AI since ever. Even before it was called AI on R&D, on the way that we develop, on the way that we bring the bioengineering and the screening of the strains. Just to put you an example, a few years ago, to define the shape of a protein of an enzyme. That's what defines the performance. An enzyme that cleans the strain,

it's because it gets, touch the strain and takes the doubt. It's the shape, the ones that defines how effective it's going to be. Changing an amino acid from the chain, it makes a difference on the protein. One year ago, a few years ago, one amino acid changed to predict the shape

of the protein, it could take one year of lab data. Today, with advanced analytics, and because we have all the data, you press in the computer, and in few seconds, less than a minute, you can predict the shape of the protein. So this brings speed on the way that we screen solutions, we develop them, and we bring them to scale. What we are, and we continue to be on top of the technology, and we continue to bring this on the way that we run in R&D, maybe what it's changing in the company, it's also how do we bring AI on the way we interact with our customers. How do we do modeling? How do we interact?

How do we sample? How do we capture the insights from the customers that we feed back into organization? How we continue to improve even productivity, even further with AI. So those are areas that we're growing and we also embracing moving forward. And when you look at the map for your R&D development going forward, what are the type of solutions that you can see which we are not having now? We have, so we're very pleased on where we are, and then we have solutions ready to bring carbon capture. We have solutions ready for make plastic recycling. We are very excited about the untapped potential of high-value, specialized proteins that will bring different answers for the nutritional needs, high muscle weight recovery, proteins that will boost the muscle weight,

proteins that will be for special patient needs that they have some troubles of digesting one proteins and providing another ones. We see really tremendous potential on helping biopharma on how to boost productivity by making the right enzymes that we're not pharma, we're not pharma, but we can help pharma. Which of these do you think will be big block posters?

So for instance, on plastic, you know, breaking down plastics, that sounds like a good thing to have? It does, it is, and I wish that. So your question is, which would be with black stars? I wish I will be all. And the answer is they all will be. Maybe the right answer is when. Maybe that's a good question. When will they be? So when will it be? That depends vainly on regulation. Regulation can help. We're okay with the regulation that we have today for the solutions that we have today. But for that really unleashing the potential and moving this new alternatives faster. Regulation could be an accelerator. It also would depend on the rest of the steps of the value chain that need to happen. We can, there is enzymes that break PET back on the building blocks and you can recycle it infinitely with lower use of energy. Somebody needs to build a plan and somebody needs to collect also that PET to be able to be recyclable. So there are milestones that need to happen outside of our space that they define the speed.

What we do here is we only invest further when the market is ready. I'll give you an example showing that tempo. Biomass for bioethanol. Ten years ago, we had answers already for making biomass for bioethelon. But the market was not ready. The technology to bring biomass into bioethanol was not there. To 10 years to develop. And now we see those plants.

We see them in Brazil. We see them in India. Japan is even talking about that. So that's the level of timing that we're talking about. Changing topic epitaph and moving on to leadership. You were 25 years in down chemicals. What did you learn there which you have brought to Novenesis? I learn the power of the Anna.

It is about just delivering the results, it is doing with the right ethics, it is not at any price, and it is looking at all the lines of the P&L, the financial tools. It's not only about growth, it's also about how healthy that growth is. It's also about cash flow, and then it's also on how we do it. I also learn the joy of being in a broad multinational. company where different voices are being there. And those are gifts that I'm very thankful. I had the privilege to grow in an organization like that.

What are you doing better in Novaneses than what Dao is doing? I'd like to think of what are we doing in Novenesis that I like. And what I do love on what we're doing in Novenesis is we are creating a category. We are creating the platform of a new way of how the, world is going to produce and the foods that we're going to eat and we're doing that through science, we're doing that through technology, we're doing that with trust of the shareholders like you, but also I would like to say we're doing it with a lot of pride. The employee engagement is extraordinary strong, the pride of what we're doing. Why is your employee engagement

strong? I can tell you why I'm engaged and also maybe what I'm what I'm feeling about the organization, it is a seamless continuity between your personal values and what we do. We are enabling a healthier lives and a healthier planet. And we're growing. It's also a joy on grow on being successful. And you do feel you're changing the world. You do feel you on an inflection point. And... But how do you... So that all sounds great, right? But now I'm more. I'm working in your factory. I'm cleaning your tank between each batch, right? That's my job. I put on my suit. I'm cleaning the walls of the tank. Why do I think is great? I would like to think

that because you understand that what you do, it's important. And how do you make me understand that? We explain it. And we think, we say a lot of thank you. We, we, because when, if you're not cleaning the tongue right, that performance of that good. it's not going to be there, and we won't be able to supply our customer with the right time, with the right delivery, and we're going to miss a big opportunity in the market. Do you think you say more thank you than other companies? I know I like saying thank you. Because he just struck me that perhaps we are not thanking our people enough.

I enjoy. I like it. It's fulfilling saying thank you. And I like also explaining it. Now we just launch the strategy. Strategy, it's only slides if it doesn't mean anything for people. So we're spending a lot of time sharing it. We're spending a lot of time sharing the strategy from different angles.

It's not only the corporate view, the business view, the geographical look, that everybody understands not only the strategy, but what does it mean for me? Why am I contribute? If I am in manufacturing, I make a difference because I'm making those products be there. And that's the impact I make to the world. If I am in finance, I'm bringing the recipe. If I am in supply chain, if I'm in R&D, I'm developing them. So everybody feels that pride of how we contribute to the full machine.

How would people characterize your leadership style? You'll have to ask them. Definitely you'll have to ask them. I hope they would say, I'm good making questions. I hope they would say it's fair and courageous. It's hard to the couple, what is your leadership type and also what is you as a person. They go a little bit together.

I thrive in an environment where I surround myself for people who is better than me. I love being challenged constructively. But are you tough? Define tough. Well, if people don't perform to your standards, what do you do? I am demanding, yes, because I think we deserve high standards. I think you deserve high standards.

I think our customers deserve high standards. But also, we embrace failure. We are an R&D company. We are a science company. Of course we fail. That's R&D. Otherwise, it would not be innovation. It will be physics.

We know that we're going to fail. But we just have to fail fast. We have to learn from those failures. and we have to move on. Who have been instrumental in shaping you as a leader? Everybody. This is not one... This is a very good question, but I don't think that's one single way.

I've been extremely fortunate, first, to be grown up in an environment where values were very important. So that's maybe the seat that is inside you. You mean from your family? Yes. What did your parents do? My father worked in tourism, and my mom did many things. Some of them was taking care of five kids, which was a full house. It was the worst probably.

Where were you in the range there? Oh, the oldest. The oldest and the worst, as my mom used to say. Well, what's driving you now then? Curiosity, change, impact. I'm an engineer. Chemical engineer. So this I need to understand, but I also did an MBA. So probably it's an engineer brain with a commercial heart. And it's the combination of both things on understanding,

learning, eager of bringing new dots, embracing new questions, but then making them practical and translate them into value creation. And how is it to be Spanish and running? Well, I mean, It's a global company, but it's quite Danish as well, right? Yeah. So how is it to be Spanish and running Danes? I've only been Spanish and Catalan and running Dan, so I don't know how it's not to be. It's good, I would say it's fine. I mean, I never look at it on how is it to be from one country and the other.

It's more how is it being in the team? How do you fill with a team that you are in? And that where you're from, it's not so important. It's more whom you are as a person. What do you bring to the group? But what does it mean to be Catalan? I mean, you mention it yourself. Probably it's a little bit stubborn, that comes a little bit with the nationality.

The language, this funny accent also means that brown hair, dark hair and black eyes, some jeans that you can help. Are you a different leader now than you were when you were younger? You have to ask my husband, but I would like for him to say that I'm the same person, older, more wrinkles, but a person, not change, leader. you learn, you grow. I mean, you cannot call yourself when 30 years ago

in the job that I had with the one that I have now. But as a person, as an individual, I hope I haven't changed that much. As a leader, of course you grow. You grow with the job. You learn with a job. You hopefully become better with time. What's the corporate culture like?

And no one is this? We have a culture that we care of each other, but we also care. Care is broader than just care of each other. We care about the planet. We care about how we, how in the society that we belong. We also have a curious culture, a culture that we want to challenge each other.

We have a culture, we want to continue to have even a bolder culture on accountability, on embracing failure, a culture of saying no. That doesn't go very strong with our culture. We're working on that on saying no or saying yes, but later. It is very important. When you have so many opportunities in biosolutions, our biggest threat is if we don't prioritize right. So many things we can do.

So for that means a yes and also needs to mean a no or yes later. Given that you're a Danish company, do you have a lot of Higge? Hig, yes. Sometimes you mentioned before what people say is when it comes into your office. When people come to headquarters and say, oh, people smiles a lot here. You guys laugh. It's like, yeah, why not? It's supposed to be fun.

And so as you are working, we do work a lot. But I also like to have some joy as we're working. So like cinema buns are we right? That kind of stuff? No, there's not cinema buns. It looks very professional. But there is a very nice Danish design with the lamps. You can tell you're in a Danish company around the globe.

When you go to Shanghai, when you go when you're in US, when you're in Latin America. There is this, you can tell the corporate culture and the Danish beautiful warmth. Were the two cultures different from Nova Seims and Christian Hansen? Of course, there were many similarities, the legacy Danish. But more importantly, the similarities on the value. and the purpose, making the wall a better planet, one with cultures, they're one with enzymes. But there are also areas that we need to continue to, I wouldn't say, put them. But the way that we drove it, it's this is the culture that we're going to go through.

We had one year to prepare between signature enclosure, thanks to the beautiful process. So that also gave us time to prepare the culture. And we ask the 10,000 employees, what is important? important for you. What do you want to take home to the Nobonesis? And what would you be willing to let go? And those answers were not necessary the same, in both similar, but not 100% the same from both legacy companies. So then we created the breadcoms from how do we go, from where we are, to where we want to be in Nobonesis. The culture of Noboneses is not legacy one or legacy another one. It's the culture of Nobonesis, the one that we're creating.

How do you relax personally? I cook, I eat, I read. What do you read? Actually, not very, my husband says very boring books. Now I'm living the reading the life of Jenghiskan. I like reading ancients also, or a little bit of, I read boring stuff probably for most of the people. But for me, it gives me peace. It puts me in a space of completely... I like people reading about lives of other people. I like reading about thoughts of other

people. What can we learn from Jenghis Khan? He, many things we don't want to learn. But actually, he... It's a pretty amazing guy, right? From his... I mean, what I was amazed is that he saw so, so rapidly that for growing so fast he needed to embrace the people that he was the countries he was concurring and he had to bring them in his organization and the way he did it on rapidly select not selecting the nobles or the or the rich selecting the ones that they were fruitful for him who does the work who are descriptions who are the ones who know how to work with metal who are the ones these ones they come in the rest we don't want to learn so much of how we treat him treat them but the way

that he could rebuild an empire and create a culture of one team with the tools that they have, no AI, no digital, no phones. Just some horses? Yes. Tiny horses on top, short legs horses. It's simply impressive. Also the way that he embraced diversity, he didn't care. It was the very first places that you had all religions sitting in the same culture, same organization.

problem because they were all part of something bigger, which was the Mongol Empire. So there are some cool learnings. So I don't think that book sounds boring at all. What do you cook? I cook mainly Mediterranean food. I cook every day. We eat home every day when I'm not traveling. So we cook normal stuff.

But then I like cooking nice stuff also from when I have time. more time. And that will be mainly fish. I really like. I like fish more than meat. But also things that look beautiful and they take a lot of time to cook and you eat very fast. Good. When do you wake up in the morning? I wake up very fast. I am not a very good wake up a person, morning person. I wake up and then in 50 minutes, 20 minutes, I'm out of the road. Typically, it depends on when I take a flight or when I don't take a flight. But I wake when the alarm clock sounds. And if it doesn't sound, I don't wake up.

I can sleep a lot. What is your advice to young people? Don't give up. Keep bringing your voice. One of the beauty of being a CEO is it gives you access to forums, different places. I like being explored to youth through the Well Economic Forum or B-Team or different frameworks outside of our organization. And I like being challenged and listening and being on those dialogues.

I would, if I had an ask, it's not advice, it's an ask, don't give up, keep bringing your voice. But then also, if I had another ask would be give us the benefit of the hope, companies, that we're doing our best. It's good to vent. Maybe you have millions of reasons to be, probably you have many reasons to be angry. I'm not challenging them. Please keep venting. Keep complaining.

We deserve that. But then also, seek for the bridge on how we can do it together. And we're learning also with their voices. And we need to continue that to be that. What would you say to youth? What I say? Oh, my, I mean, you know, run towards problems, learn all the time, all these kind of things. Travel, spend money traveling, you know, have fun with friends.

and family. So all these kind of... Make a family. Think about the future. You have to be thinking about a better future ahead of us. And sometimes I feel that that's not really

there embedded for all the youth. There is this little bit thing that, oh, this is we're not going in a good place. That's not, that's only going to happen if we think that that's going to happen. That's not going to happen if we believe a different path. Yeah.

Esther, you and I know when it's, clearly is making the world a better place. And I hope all the listeners understand why we totally love this company. It's been great having you on. Through the pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you.