Dimitri de Vreeze (dsm-firmenich): ‘Blindly accepting assumptions is the biggest mistake you can make’

04-02-2025 | Interviewer: Marc-Jan Reumers | Author: Angelo van Leemput | Image: Maartje Geels
Dimitri de Vreeze has worked all his professional life at the former DSM. He was once ‘head of the rest of the world.’ After the much-discussed merger of DSM with the Swiss Firmenich - with, at the time, fears that DSM would be lost to Limburg - he heads the new company.
The interview takes place in the brand-new dual headquarters of dsm-firmenich in Maastricht; in a completely sustainably renovated building that used to serve, among other things, as a trade school and cinema.
De Vreeze’s boardroom now fills the position of one of the former movie theaters. In the corner of his office is a racing bike. De Vreeze is a big cycling enthusiast, and dsm-firmenich was the primary sponsor until last season and is now the innovation partner of the eponymous cycling team. The team rides Scott bikes but will soon switch to Lapierre bikes, a French brand with Dutch roots, though De Vreeze admits to Marc-Jan Reumers from Kearney that he is ‘more of a Pinarello kind of guy’. Nevertheless, he recently acquired the Scott bike from Scottish cycling talent Oscar Onley. His new acquisition now sits at dsm-firmenich’s other headquarters in Kaiseraugst, Switzerland. Whenever possible, he takes it for a spin.
You have been with the former DSM since 1990. That is a long time...
‘Yes, my kids always laugh when we speak about this. ‘Dad, you are a dinosaur,’ they say. I admit it: it is not very common anymore for someone to stay at the same company this long. I think I have it in my DNA. My father worked at the same company from the age of 16 to 64. Very loyal. And this value has been handed down to me. He was proud that I had been with DSM for so long. ‘You definitely learned something from your old man!’ And, yes, I learned a lot from him.
But the DSM of that time was a very different company from the current dsm-firmenich...
‘Certainly. But truth be told, this dinosaur has constantly worked in different environments. When I started at DSM in 1990, the company had been privatized for only three years. It was the era of naphtha crackers, plastics, fertilizers, and melamine. I joined as the youngest member of an acquisition team, tasked with finding business in fine chemicals. Not long after, I became sales manager for special products - rest of the world. In other words (he taps his desk): here is the core business and over there (taps the edge of his desk) are special products, rest of the world.’ (With a playful tone:) ‘I would like to say: the critically strategic region of rest of the world! No one took me seriously. I had my business card changed to Eastern Europe & India, which made it look more strategic.
But seriously: my first roles reflected how DSM was positioned in the competition. They always looked beyond their own portfolio. What is core today need not be so in 10 or 20 years. One of my mentors, the late DSM strategist Hein Schreuder, was ahead of his time in that regard. Under his leadership, we started the business strategic dialogues. The idea was that top management would give direction, but the real strategy should come from dialogue with the people who know what is happening in the business. That approach has been incredibly rewarding for us.’
Is that still how you approach strategy?
‘If you want to remain successful, you must make clear choices. Strategy is about making choices. Portfolio is about making choices. And making choices is painful. It means you can only open three of ten doors. The other seven remain closed. And therein lies the dilemma. Sometimes you open a door too soon. Or too late. Or maybe you should have chosen another one... Well, welcome to my world. At former DSM, for example, we sold 'materials' – with a heavy heart, because that was 'my' division – to invest more in nutrition. That required tremendous innovation. We had to build capacity, capability. And that is how we became a food company, which evolved into a nutrition corporation focusing on products that promote health. But some of our products simply did not taste good. Take the fantastic product PeptoPro, for instance: a drink designed for quick hydration of the body. Extremely handy during exercise, for example. Only: the peptides made it incredibly bitter. In fact, it was just about undrinkable. So, no one bought it. Based on these experiences, we started thinking ahead. We made a few small acquisitions with which we added flavors and fragrances to our pallet. But we soon came to the conclusion that, if we wanted to make a real leap, we would have to be even more ambitious.’
And that is how Firmenich came into the picture?
‘Funnily enough, when I was head of rest of the world, Firmenich was my first client. We made products for the fragrance industry. I visited the company’s creative director, or as they called him, 'The Nose' of Firmenich, a specialist in perfumes, flavors and ingredients. I walked in with five jars, and he smelled at it: ‘This one is nothing, but this one has potential.’ I will never forget that. With the merger with Firmenich, I felt the circle was complete. Firmenich had been at the top of my list. But to be honest, I had crossed it off. It was a family business. Impossible.’
But that turned out not to be the case...
‘No, and that is something I learned from those strategic business dialogues. This is extremely important: the biggest mistake you can make is to make major assumptions; and then not question those assumptions. This was one of those assumptions: ‘no chance.’ But based purely on what I was taught at DSM, I decided to check the assumption. I had coffee with Gilbert Ghostine, CEO of Firmenich, and asked, ‘Gilbert, do not take offence, but can we buy Firmenich?’ He replied, ‘Well, I most certainly am offended, because we are not for sale.’ ‘But,’ he said, ‘I do find a merger an interesting idea.’ That is how it started. The Firmenich family did not want to sell, but they were open to merging. And so, we worked out the details.’
The merger was a significant decision – especially from a Dutch perspective. Was it difficult?
‘The merger itself was not the biggest dilemma. For me, the biggest dilemma was relinquishing part of the heritage of the former DSM. After all, we officially became a Swiss-Dutch company, not Dutch-Swiss. In the end, I was satisfied that we balanced it in a successful way, with headquarters in Maastricht and Kaiseraugst. And an AEX listing in Amsterdam. They preferred a listing in Switzerland, but I said: 'We need to maintain a balance.’
Were you so adamant also due to the public debate in the Netherlands about big companies leaving?
‘Of course. We just saw Shell and Unilever leave! We made a very conscious choice to remain in the Netherlands.’
The merger is generally perceived as successful. What was the secret?
‘That can be explained in part by the fact that the leaders within the two merger companies always deliberated from a long-term perspective. We always looked ahead.’
Many CEOs say that...
‘Yes, but here it is ingrained. After the merger, we immediately began looking at the future. What will the market look like in 10 or 15 years? And will animal nutrition be part of it? We could have said: well, who cares, animal nutrition is profitable. But no, we wanted to make clear choices. Do we focus fully on three doors, or less so on ten? Investing in human nutrition, health and beauty is completely different from investing in animal nutrition. We decided to put animal nutrition aside.
Incidentally, I believe one of the main reasons the merger has been successful is that it was not a cost-merger. We did not merge to save costs or anything similar. We complemented each other perfectly: DSM was healthy and sustainable, Firmenich was tasty and sustainable. And both of us were focused on healthy, tasty, and sustainable.
Finally, the choice was not only strategic. The cultures also matched. We shared the same values. The companies were, in fact, quite similar. Firmenich was a family business run like a company listed on the Swiss Exchange. And DSM was a listed company with an ingrained family feel. So, yes, the merger went very smoothly. Much smoother than I expected. We hit the bull’s eye.’
What was the worst-case scenario?
‘My biggest nightmare was mixing everything into one big pot and ending up with mediocrity. That often happens with mergers. It becomes ten times nothing. I wanted to maintain the strengths of both companies. Firmenich was strong in the route to market. We made no changes there. DSM was excellent with ingredients. We made those available in Firmenich’s model. That worked out really well, even internally. Colleagues felt like kids in a candy store which has suddenly doubled in size. DSM developers could now create products at dsm-firmenich which actually taste and smell good. That is highly energizing.’
How did you approach the timing and implementation of the merger?
‘We very deliberately took our time. We intentionally did not rush into integration on all cylinders right from day one. We focused on our taste, texture and health business unit first. The other three units we left for a while. We did not bulldoze everything at once. That is often the tendency after a merger: full speed ahead. We purposely avoided that. Making choices, also here.’
How have you developed as a leader?
‘Step by step. In the beginning of your career, you are focused mainly on your own performance. You aim to be as effective as possible, working 25 hours a day. As a team leader, you learn that you have far more impact if you can make others 10 percent more effective. And once you become an enterprise leader, it becomes more abstract. Suddenly, you have an impact on people you do not even know. You learn that in the way you speak and present things, consistency and authenticity are incredibly important. Then you reach the next phase, which I am in now, as CEO. In this phase, what you build and leave behind for the next phase becomes the focus. I am absolutely focused on the next step, so that the person who follows can take over and continue. I would hate it if, 20 years from now, I had to conclude that dsm-firmenich no longer is ‘my company.’ I would not be able to face myself in the mirror.’
You have recently become more involved in societal debates. Why?
‘It has to do with accumulated experience and the stage of life I am in. I realized recently that many of my mentors, my teachers, have passed away. And my father four years ago. These people were important to me. I sometimes think, wow, I now am the oldest generation. I feel an added responsibility to the next generation. I learned tremendously much from my predecessor Feike Sijbesma who, fortunately, is still very much alive. He said: ‘You cannot be successful in a world that fails.' I do not want to retire and conclude that dsm-firmenich has done great, but that the world has not become a better place. My parents taught me that you do what is within your possibilities. And with certain talents come certain responsibilities. I see it as my mission. I think our company can help make the world healthier with healthy food and wellbeing. We can give people a much better life through nutrition. I feel a responsibility in my current role to make the world just a little bit better. After enterprise leadership comes the connection to responsible citizen leadership. And that is the phase I am in now.’
What is your perspective on this form of leadership?
‘That, in the debate, you must always reflect on yourself. Too often in the public debate, people point fingers at others: They are not doing it right, they need to change. No, first acknowledge something you could have done better. Be honest about the things that did not go well and show that you have learned from them. Polarization is for beginners. Having a sharp debate, with respect for others and an eye for differences, is for advanced thinkers. Be open to that. If you want to guide the direction of the Netherlands, you need to have a conversation. Unfortunately, that is where things often go wrong nowadays. Dialogue has become almost impossible. Just look at all the debates in the Dutch parliament and in society. And that brings me back to our business strategic dialogue, the best thing we ever devised. Of course, it is the board of directors that shapes the strategy, but the board cannot get it right without the input from others.’
This interview was published in Management Scope 02 2025.
This article was last changed on 04-02-2025