Latest news with #valuecreation
Zawya
11 hours ago
- Business
- Zawya
Agthia Group appoints Jeroen Nijs as Chief Financial Officer
Abu Dhabi, UAE – Agthia Group PJSC ('Agthia' or 'the Group'), one of the region's leading food and beverage companies, today announced the appointment of Jeroen Nijs as Group Chief Financial Officer. This appointment marks a strategic step in Agthia's journey to further strengthen its financial infrastructure, accelerate transformation, and deepen its focus on long-term value creation, resilience, and operational excellence. Bringing over 25 years of international leadership experience, Jeroen has held senior finance roles at global FMCG companies including Flora Food Group, Mondelēz International, Danone and PepsiCo. Most recently, he served as Global Deputy CFO of Flora Food Group, a USD 3.5 billion consumer packaged goods company. During his time, he introduced AI-enabled Revenue Growth Management, steered post-carve-out performance improvements and oversaw global commercial and supply-chain finance, as well as FP&A functions. During his tenure at Mondelēz Europe, he held several key positions, including Finance Director M&A, Category CFO for the Meals business and Head of Asset Management & Treasury. Jeroen has a track record of talent development and has consistently built high-performing finance teams. He holds a Master of Science in Business & Information Systems Engineering from the University of Hasselt in Belgium. Salmeen Al Ameri, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Agthia Group, commented: 'Jeroen joins Agthia at a key moment in our transformation journey, as we sharpen our focus on operational excellence, financial discipline, and long-term resilience. His global expertise, digital mindset, and strong track record in driving financial innovation will be instrumental as we build a more agile, data-driven organization. Beyond his technical capabilities, Jeroen brings a leadership style rooted in collaboration and integrity - qualities that align closely with Agthia's values and future ambition. I look forward to working with him as we create lasting value for our shareholders, empower our people, and strengthen our position as a responsible, future-focused F&B leader.' Jeroen Nijs, Group Chief Financial Officer of Agthia Group, added: 'It is a privilege to join Agthia at such a pivotal time. The Group's ambitious vision and clear sense of purpose resonate strongly with my own values as a finance leader, as well as my passion for combining purpose with performance. Together with the talented leadership team and colleagues, I look forward to driving the next chapter of Agthia's transformation by building an agile, data-driven and consumer-centric organisation that delivers sustainable, profitable growth and elevates Agthia's relevance on the global FMCG stage.' Hala Hobeiche Katounas, who served as the Group's Interim CFO from January 2025, will resume her responsibilities as Head of Mergers and Acquisitions. About Agthia Agthia Group PJSC (ADX: AGTHIA) is one of the region's leading food and beverage companies headquartered in Abu Dhabi and part of ADQ, an active sovereign investor focused on critical infrastructure and global supply chains. Established in 2004, Agthia has evolved into a diversified, multi-category F&B leader with a strong regional footprint across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Egypt, Turkey, and Jordan. The Group's integrated portfolio includes market-leading brands across four key categories: Water & Food (Al Ain Water, Al Bayan, VOSS, Alpin, Campa Cola, SunRice, Al Ain Food), Snacking (Al Foah, BMB, Abu Auf, Al Faysal Bakery & Sweets), Protein and Frozen (Nabil Foods, Atyab, Al Ain Frozen Vegetables), and Agri-Business (Grand Mills, Agrivita). With more than 12,000 employees across its operations, Agthia's products reach consumers in over 60 markets worldwide. For more information, please visit or, email us on corpcoms@ For media requests, please contact: Mohamed Rashaad - Media Relations Director, Influence Communications Email: Forward Looking Statements: Agthia Group PJSC and its management may make forward-looking statements regarding the Group's financial condition, operations, and business. These statements often include terms such as 'anticipates,' 'targets,' 'expects,' 'hopes,' 'estimates,' 'intends,' 'plans,' 'goals,' 'believes,' 'continues,' as well as future or conditional verbs like 'will,' 'may,' 'might,' 'should,' 'would,' and 'could.' Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Factors influencing such outcomes include, but are not limited to, market conditions, competition, production inputs, currency fluctuations, tax exposures, and regulatory compliance. While Agthia Group PJSC believes it has a reasonable basis for making these statements, readers are advised to approach such forward-looking information with caution. Agthia does not commit to updating these statements, except as required by law.
Forbes
6 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Why Self-Awareness Unlocks The Best Business Partnerships
The best business partnerships start with self-awareness. Strategic business partnerships empower companies to unlock greater value than they could alone. Yet, forming a successful alliance can be difficult – it requires alignment on goals, values, and vision. Whether uniting companies for a chapter or a long journey, here's why having self-awareness creates the best business partnerships. Before embarking on a potential business partnership, it is important to recognize and clarify your organization's key strengths and long-term goals. A successful partnership develops a shared vision. This can only occur if both parties clearly delineate their skills and goals of their business. Sal Frisella, CEO of 1st Phorm, shared to me via email on his company's recent partnership with Anheuser-Busch for Phorm Energy, 'We need to believe in each other and have a common drive to build something that really matters. It's important that both sides bring their own strengths, but what really makes it work is a shared vision.' Home in and streamline your expertise. Companies that dabble in too many products or services may lose their long-term vision and value proposition. Subject matter expertise requires diligent focus and precise cultivation of specific skills. Being a strong player in your market will naturally attract equally successful potential collaborators. Being self-aware means not only identifying the strengths of your organization, but also being able to pinpoint company weaknesses. 'Weaknesses' should be viewed as a future area to develop or a cognizant choice to not allocate resources for a specific domain. Successful organizations are transparent. They understand that naming development areas opens up opportunities to collaborate with a partner that fills the gaps. Revealing your company's weaknesses sets the stage for a continued open and collaborative dialogue. Vulnerability generates reciprocal honesty and trust – the foundation of a successful partnership. Globally, trust is at an all-time low; 68% of people believe business leaders purposefully mislead people, an increase of 12 percentage points since 2021, according to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report. It's important to lead with authenticity in potential partnership conversations. A business partnership is a merging of two ecosystems. Each company has their own unique culture, represented in communication styles and how they work. Frisella elaborates on this, recognizing 'Any real partnership is going to come with challenges, especially when you're building something from the ground up. You've got different teams, different cultures, and different ways of doing things. The key is being flexible without ever compromising who you are.' Embrace flexibility and choice while maintaining the big picture view. Being open to new ideas and approaches will help smooth the transition of multiple teams joining together. Frisella noted that he and Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth connected on a personal level, stemming from mutual respect and a shared vision. Continuously recognize and fulfill the unique needs of your company, the partnering organization, and the collective partnership for a successful collaboration. Knowing and demonstrating your company's values is imperative to finding an equal business that shares similar beliefs. Company values should be more than a catalog of corporate buzzwords. It must be felt in every interaction, email, and decision. An organization's values must be embedded in how you communicate, collaborate, and perform for your philosophies to be meaningful. When asked about advice for businesses looking to secure their first partnership, Frisella replied: 'My advice is simple: be willing to do the work, stay resilient, and only move forward with partners who share your values.' Understanding and expressing your own company values makes finding a business partner with similar values attainable. Building a successful business partnership begins with strong self-awareness. Knowing and communicating your company's strengths, weakness, work styles, and values enables solid business partnerships. Effective collaborations embrace authenticity, flexibility, and a shared vision. Taking this approach will create partnerships that are not only strategic, but also meaningful and resilient.
Harvard Business Review
27-05-2025
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
Strategy Isn't a Mystery
An HBR Executive Masterclass with Felix Oberholzer-Gee. To many people, strategy is a total mystery. But it's really not complicated, says Harvard Business School's Felix Oberholzer-Gee. Strategy is simply a plan to create value.
Forbes
26-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The New Destiny Of Management: Creating Value Faster
Communication technology with global internet network What will it take to attain the Drucker Forum's goal of turning management into a noble calling that helps create a worthy society? We will need more than piecemeal patches added on to current management thinking. Instead, we need to re-conceive management afresh as the art and science of creating value for others faster. In its HBR article of June 2024, the Drucker Forum suggested that 'The Next Management' should include at least seven aspirations: including innovation more than efficiency, ecosystems more than single institutions, long-term, more than short term, focus, human augmentation, more than automation, management as an art, more than a science, reality grounded more than ideology, and self-renewal capacity, more than revolution.[i] There is nothing wrong with these seven 'fixes' in themselves. They will, however, make little difference if the underlying concept of management involves creating value primarily for the firm, its executives and its shareholders. This traditional concept of management has a long and troubled history. It was assumed by Adam Smith in Wealth Of Nations, (1776), by Fredrick Taylor in The Principles of Scientific Management, (1911), by the U.S. Business Round Table (1997), by most articles in leading management journals even today [ii] Meanwhile, a different approach emerges from following Peter Drucker's advice to 'look out the window and note what is visible but not yet seen.' Over the last quarter century, some firms have already begun implementing the converse of merely making money for the company. Now profits are a result, not the goal. As these new firms found ways to have human concerns modify and drive the processes, practices, and methods of management, they have grown much faster and ironically have made exponentially more money than companies focused primarily on making money. They tend to began with the customer and worked backwards, while also giving thought to all the stakeholders. In so doing, they began to live the new destiny of management: creating value for others. Examples of firms that are mostly pursuing this goal and the results they have obtained in terms of long term returns and workplace satisfaction are included below in Figure 1. They include firms of all sizes and in all sectors in the U.S., Europe and Asia. In one sense, this is like rediscovering the wheel. For millennia, the human race has known that when we create value for others, the true spirit of living is alive in us. Whatever our kind of work, whether it is a business, a team, a family, a community or a political movement, when we embody the spirit of creating value for others, we become inventive, searching, daring, and self-expressing. We may disturb and upset, but we often also open the way for better understanding. What led to the change? It wasn't a sudden moral epiphany on the part of business leaders. It's a recognition by businesses that the world itself has changed. The internet (and now AI) gave rise first, to firms, new possibilities for innovation, and then to customers, more choices, and finally to firms again, the potential of new business models that can generate exponential network effects.[iii] The old way of managing can't keep up. Smart managers saw they had to do something different. While each firm is unique and uses its own language, the underlying management patterns have much in common. Thus Apple talks of a different 'culture'. Microsoft speaks about 'mindset', 'empathy' and 'values.' Amazon focuses on 'leadership principles.' Some firms talked of 'mental models' and 'narratives.' The Agile Manifesto spoke of valuing 'individuals and interactions' more than 'processes and tools.' Despite the differences, they are all about putting people ahead of processes. The new breed of firm generally uses subjective concepts to drive their objective business processes. These mindsets, goals, values, and narratives are the very things that traditional management dismissed in principle. The result has been an upheaval in every aspect of business practices. It can be called a paradigm shift in management, although probably no more than 20% of public firms have yet made the transition. Instead of trying to fix individual issues by adding patches to a framework of traditional management, the fastest growing firms have transformed almost every process so as to form an integrated concept of running a company. These multiple but integrated changes require that managers and staff need to think about work differently. How they perceive the organization is different, as is the language they use in the workplace. Methods, processes and tools don't disappear. But in these firms. it is the mindsets, and values that drive and transform the methods and processes, rather than vice versa. The result is a culture where employees can see meaning in what they do. It is not that the fast-growing firms without flaws. They all need to make continued progress towards creating steadily more value for stakeholders. and avoid backsliding towards self-interest. Lessons For Others Understanding how these fast-growing firms are being managed is the first step for those firms that are still being managed by yesterday's methods and processes. Unless they begin making similar shifts, most will not survive, at least in their current form. And read also: How Creating Value For Others Has Become The Key To Business Success How Networks Of Competence Are Crushing Hierarchies Of Authority Figure 1: Public firms with a track record of sustained fast growth. Firms with track records of sustained fast growth [i] Straub, R. Re-framing Management For The 21st Century,' HBR, June 2024. [ii] See for example Michael Mankins 'Lean Strategy Making' HBR, May-June 2025 [iii] Denning, S. 'Understanding How Exponential Network Effects Do—Or Don't—Happen' Aug 4, 2024 [iv] 'The CEO of e.l.f. Beauty on Maintaining a Startup Culture While Scaling.' HBR, Jan 2025
Harvard Business Review
20-05-2025
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
To Survive Uncertainty, Companies Must Recommit to Identifying the Right Customers
In the last five or so years, corporate responses to a challenging macroeconomic environment have been dominated by two themes: cost cuts and price increases. This isn't surprising; economic turbulence often triggers short-term, reactive thinking as executives fixate on immediate concerns like meeting or beating quarterly earnings expectations. Today, as tariffs have thrown company plans into turmoil and forecasts of economic growth have become muted, it's likely that executives will turn again to those tools. The trouble is, we've found that cost-cutting is ineffective in isolation, and consumers are showing that they're increasingly unable or unwilling to pay higher prices, or will purchase less or make alternative product choices. This short-term focus may serve for a quarter or two, but it frequently distracts from what really matters over the long term: creating value for the customers who, in turn, create value for you. Companies that want to deliver the results their investors expect will have to earn them, not engineer them. That process begins with choosing the right 'win-win' customers to serve. The Limits of Engineering Profit Growth In the five years from the beginning of Covid through 2024, businesses confronted unprecedented challenges—not only a global pandemic that disrupted operations worldwide for more than a year, but also an extraordinary range of variables affecting supply chains, demand patterns, and profitability. A large majority responded to the crisis with some form of cost-cutting and price increase. But our recent analysis suggests that these measures have only a limited impact on a company's long-term value potential, unless they're done in conjunction with, and in the service of, the strategic work of picking the right customers. Take cost-cutting, which has been a dominant theme since Covid-19. In 2023 alone, 69% of businesses cited cost-cutting as a primary strategic focus, according to a Hackett Group survey. However, when we analyzed the detailed financial results of a large, relevant cohort of 1,000 companies in the Russell 3000, we found that operating efficiency improvements—measured as reductions in operating expenses (SG&A, or selling, general, and administrative expenses) relative to sales—showed essentially no correlation with growth in the market value of the company (as measured by total shareholder returns, or TSR: share price appreciation plus dividend yield). Efficiency matters, certainly, but the data strongly suggests that businesses can't rely solely on cost-cutting to flow to the financial bottom line and thus deliver superior long-term returns. Pricing presents a more nuanced picture. According to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), overall inflation rose by about 6% between Q1 2022 and Q3 2023, with roughly half of that increase attributable to the expansion of corporate profit margins—in other words, companies raising prices faster than their input costs. The remainder was largely attributed to higher labor and non-labor costs. Based on BEA data retrieved in February 2024 from Q3 2023 to Q3 2024, however, inflation slowed, and the role of profit margins diminished sharply, accounting for only approximately 20% of the total price-level increase. This notable reduction in the profit-driven share of inflation suggests a meaningful decline in firms' pricing power—or at least their willingness or ability to expand margins through price increases. Indeed, evidence is mounting that consumers are nearing their limits. Indicators such as retail sales, consumer confidence levels, new residential construction, and, of course, the stock market, underscore this point. What price elasticity remains will likely be needed to cover the higher cost of materials from tariffs and other trade restrictions. 'Give me a lever long enough and I will move the world,' the Greek polymath Archimedes is purported to have said. But price is no longer that lever. How to Earn Profitable Growth With pricing headroom constrained and cost-cutting shown to have no direct correlation to shareholder returns, what does work? Where should business leaders focus, especially now that economic growth is slowing and uncertainty is increasing? They should make deliberate, smart choices about where and how to compete—that is, which customers to serve and how to earn their business. Management must have the right facts, strategies, capital allocation, and organizational capabilities to choose the right customers: those where 'win-win' value relationships are most likely to occur. Our analysis of that cohort of top-performing companies over the past five years reveals a common thread: They made deliberate choices about who their most critical, profitable customers were and tailored their operational and commercial strategies to serve them. This often required making bold decisions not only about whom to target, but equally, whom not to. Two U.S.-based companies—Dillard's department stores and T-Mobile—are excellent examples of choosing these 'win-win' customers. Dillard's: Strategic customer selection Over the past five years, Dillard's deliberately shifted away from the common department store strategy of maximizing their addressable market by going after a wide variety of customer segments. Instead, the company shifted its focus to up-market customer segments; as CEO William Dillard and president Alex Dillard told shareholders in 2023, 'We are the place where customers are far more motivated by fashion and newness than by price or promotional measures.' Having identified who those customers were, Dillard's reoriented virtually all its activities to attract, serve, and create value for them. They: Strategically reduced discounting and off-price promotions (a strategy that most of their peers leaned into), which improved the perception of the brand. Focused their product offerings on high-performing, trend-focused items, emphasizing exclusivity. Refined store design, marketing, and customer experience to align specifically with their desired customer segment. Invested strategically in inventory management, quality assurance, and localized assortment analytics to make sure each Dillard's store stocked what its premium customers were likely to want. The results were impressive: According to our analysis of data from the financial data and software company FactSet, from 2019 to 2024, Dillard's gross profit grew at triple the pace of its peers, its operating margins went from worst-in-class to best-in-class, its share of industry economic profits (i.e., profits after accounting for the cost of capital) increased by 45%, and it delivered nearly 50% TSR. T-Mobile: Finding underserved customers T-Mobile followed a different path to superior returns. The mobile phone carrier used a deep understanding of the competitive landscape and the needs of its customers to capitalize on the strategic vulnerabilities of its peers. As Verizon and AT&T battled it out over premium customers in large urban centers, T-Mobile identified underserved customer segments, such as underpenetrated geographic regions, 'network seekers' who prioritize broad geographic coverage (including international), and value-conscious consumers seeking affordability without compromise. T-Mobile addressed these segments through two primary strategies: one technical, one focused on customer experience. Technically, T-Mobile decided to leverage the midband 5G spectrum. While this was slower than Verizon's Millimeter Wave 5G spectrum, it provided broader geographic coverage and was still fast enough for most consumers, especially the ones T-Mobile was targeting. At the same time, the company pursued its 'un-carrier' strategy to eliminate traditional pain points experienced by their target customers, such as activation fees and hidden charges, service contracts, etc. While this approach had been part of T-Mobile's strategy since 2013, its impact accelerated significantly as T-Mobile successfully closed the gap on coverage quality with Verizon and AT&T. Between 2022 and Q2 2024, T-Mobile added more customers than all scaled broadband competitors combined. T-Mobile was able to translate this newly created consumer value into shareholder value, increasing its industry economic profit share by 20% over the past five years, according to our analysis, along with TSR averaging about 25% a year—significantly outperforming its rivals. Strategic Recommendations for Business Leaders A strategy of choosing and keeping the right 'win-win' customers rests on four pillars: The right facts to identify the most profitable customer segments and their value-drivers A detailed mapping of where and why value is concentrated inside a company's business and in the external markets is a critical starting point. Detailed analysis almost always shows that economic profit (that is, profit after accounting for the cost of capital) is concentrated in a few intersections of product with customer segments, geographic markets, or channels. For example, it's far more profitable for bottlers to sell single cans of soda in convenience stores than two-liter bottles in supermarkets. Typical management and strategic planning departments fail to develop economic facts at a sufficiently granular level. As a result, management is forced to make decisions 'around the average,' which is often misleading. With more granular information, companies can direct their investment to where the payoff is biggest—and, equally important, they can use cost and price levers in ways specifically focused on increasing economic profit. Without that information, investments and initiatives are likely to be evenly spread across a company's activities. The right strategies that focus on the right opportunities Knowing the who (which customers to serve) and the how (which levers create value for them and you) now requires building the what: strategies that deliver a coherent, coordinated approach to product offering, marketing, and operations. Dillard's, for example, identified upmarket customers as an opportunity and molded its product offering, store design, and operational capabilities around how to best serve those customers—as well as which offerings/capabilities did not serve these purposes (e.g., those that appeal to more price-sensitive customers). Similarly, T-Mobile's 'un-carrier' strategy deliberately stripped out traditional features that alienated value-conscious customers while emphasizing network reliability and affordability, delivering a strategy fully aligned with its chosen customer segments. The right resource allocation to go all in on the right opportunities The resource-allocation process—capital budgeting, annual budgeting, etc.—must then be aligned with the right strategies. Too often, companies fail to connect the capital budget and strategic planning. As a result, when companies allocate resources, they pay too much attention to how much revenue a customer generates and not enough to how profitable that revenue is. The architects of the budget apportion resources based on 'last year, plus or minus' instead of on how much value those resources can create. Ensuring that all resources—capital, operating expenses, management time, etc.—are appropriately focused is at the heart of capturing and keeping the most profitable customers. The right organizational and operational capabilities to support the strategy Behind every strategic win lies a winning organizational foundation. Enduring success depends on the capabilities and conditions that support it—particularly consistent, high-quality decision-making processes across capital allocation, strategy development, performance management, talent management, and incentive design. When these systems are tightly aligned with strategic goals, they become powerful enablers of sustained performance. For example, Dillard's localized assortment success required the right inventory management, real-time store/SKU data, and supply chain logistics capabilities. . . . The economic turmoil of the past five years has highlighted the importance of building a strategy by working from the customer back to products and operations. As uncertainty extends into 2025 and beyond, prioritizing the customer—the right customer—is not merely advantageous: It is essential for enduring success. By choosing the right customers, then orchestrating a combination of strategic and line-item actions around those choices, companies can outperform their peers, deliver higher returns to investors, and win for themselves a greater share of their industries' economic profit. They'll also position themselves for even more success when overall growth picks up. Whether this period will ultimately be viewed as an anomaly or as the beginning of a new era characterized by near-constant disruption and accelerated innovation remains uncertain. However, what is clear is that this 'new normal' shows no signs of going away anytime soon.
