Diversity in the company’s management
Brødrene A & O Johansen A/S (hereinafter referred to as AO) places great emphasis on having the right person in the right position, so that the company’s interests are safeguarded in the best possible manner, providing the best possible basis for short and long-term value creation.
AO views diversity as a necessity and a strength that contributes to the company’s management, development and growth, and wants the composition of the company’s staff to reflect diversity in society.
The diversity in employees’ ways of viewing and tackling challenges is the basis for AO’s success and contributes to strengthening AO’s possibilities for developing the company going forward.
The Board has chosen to formalise the above-mentioned statements by adopting a diversity policy for the company’s management levels, intended to contribute to management having the necessary diversity in qualifications and competencies relating to the specific management level and the complexity of the company.
The Board
At the Board level, there is a focus on how diversity can contribute to enhancing the quality of the work and interaction of the Board through diversity in access to tasks, development and management.
Pursuant to the “Recommendations on Corporate Governance”, the Board conducts an annual assessment of whether the Board has the necessary qualifications and competencies, as a whole and individually.
In this connection, the Board has assessed that it is essential for AO that, at a minimum, the following competencies are always represented on the Board.
- Management experience from other larger companies, including knowledge regarding publicly listed companies.
- Strategy and risk management
- Sales and marketing, including e-commerce
- Distribution and logistics, including storage and purchases
- Digitisation and automation
- Economics and finance, including accounting and auditing
- IT development and IT security.
In the assessment, diversity of education and professional experience are also weighted, in addition to personal competencies.
Reference is otherwise made to the “Competency profile of the Board of Directors of Brødrene A & O Johansen A/S”, which elaborates on the Board’s overall competencies”, and which is available at https://ao.dk/om-ao/investor-relations/in-english/company-profile/competency-profile.
If there is a need to strengthen or supplement the Board’s qualifications or competencies, it is the Chairman of the Board’s responsibility to ensure that the necessary resources are allocated for education and/or initiate discussions with the company’s majority shareholder for a possible change of the Board’s composition.
Upon recruiting new board members, the current Board’s qualifications and competencies are assessed, with a view to identifying areas where there is a need for improvement or supplementing. The identified areas, together with considerations regarding education, professional experience and personal competencies, form the basis for determining which profiles will be sought for recruitment.
Other management levels
Other management levels at AO comprise the managing director, operations directors, store managers and middle management in the operations.
The Board is also focused on emphasising diversity of education, professional experience, age and gender for management, adapted to the individual’s area of responsibility and function. Upon appointment or recruitment of new managers, personal competencies and potential contributions to the interactions of the management, will also be emphasised.
Appointment or hiring of store managers and middle management in the various functions occurs in cooperation between the individual operations directors and the management. Here also, diversity is of great importance, especially in terms of approaching the company’s customers, suppliers and other partners and stakeholders on an equal footing.
In order to increase representation of the under-represented gender at other management levels in AO, the Board has prepared a separate policy in this regard. The purpose of the policy is to achieve a more equal distribution of women and men in the highest management bodies, and the long-term objective is for the gender distribution at management levels to reflect the general composition at AO.
The policy to increase the proportion of the under-represented gender in the company’s other management levels is available at https://ao.dk/om-ao/investor-relations/in-english/company-profile/target-figures-and-policies-for-the-gender-composition-of-management.
Reassessment of the diversity policy
The Board will consider, and if necessary, reassess the diversity policy on an annual basis.
As adopted by the Board of Directors on 6th December 2018.