Barry Callebaut’s remarkable success is clearly attributable to the stewardship and farsightedness of Andreas Jacobs. Andreas Jacobs joined the Board of Directors in 2003 and was elected its chairman in December 2005. After eleven years at the helm of our company, he will be stepping down from his post at the Annual General Meeting 2016.

Barry Callebaut owes its departing chairman a lot. The company’s undisputed global leadership in cocoa and chocolate production is largely due to the bold strategic decisions that Andreas Jacobs made in recent years. He had the strength and determination to turn his visions into reality. Andreas Jacobs had little appetite for short-termism nor was he obsessed with the next set of quarterly results, neither as Chairman nor as a representative of Jacobs Holding AG, our majority shareholder. Passionate and knowledgeable about every aspect of the company, caring for the people as much as he was for building the business for the long term, Andreas Jacobs has been a formidable ambassador of Barry Callebaut with all its stakeholders. As custodian of family values which are at the heart of our company, he carefully introduced his brother Nicolas Jacobs to the duties of a Director enabling the family’s intergenerational succession plan.

The Jacobs family will therefore continue to be duly represented on our Board.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Andreas Jacobs for his strong leadership that has helped make Barry Callebaut what it is today.

The Board of Directors, Executive Committee and employees of Barry Callebaut