He acknowledged that fulfilling these promises also comes down to people, and having lost some people through the pandemic, this means shortage of skill, know-how and even cultural connections to the company.

“This [people element] is something we take very seriously because this is one of the most biggest success factors of our company over all these years. Our mission statement must give purpose to people, to ensure they can build their skills but in turn help us to grow.

“We can tell a new growth story as an industry, as a company, and you need to do that with your mission statement so people will find their home here, have freedom to grow and to influence. We are global and have these vast skillsets around the world and intend to use this heavily in future – with diversity and exchange in the workforce.

The Gebr. Heinemann Mission Statement

“People and skills – that is probably the biggest priority that we have because if we want to tell our story or bring digitalisation and innovation and creativity to our marketplaces and shape travel retail, we need the people. And we need to do that in a clear, cultural and human way, a Heinemann way. We will place a lot of emphasis on this.”

Co-CEO Raoul Spanger said: “We never said we want to be the biggest; it’s not realistic and it’s not our target. But to show we are the most human-centric travel retail company is something we have to measure and to prove. Then to turn travel time into variable time, this is really a new high target.

“The vision in our company is to reach this very high goal, but it is long term, eight to ten years. We have prepared ourselves and all our teams, our efforts and our motivations go into fulfilling this vision in the next years. That means of course internally ensuring that people have a clearer picture and that our partners worldwide know what that means.”