“A great first impression”

Welcome, Jörn Andreas! How was your start at KWS?

I found it very smooth. Because my appointment was announced last year, I was able to start the onboarding process together with my predecessor Eva Kienle. That was very good. In this regard, my Christmas was pretty work-intensive, because I took a few folders home with me. (laughs) I used the first few days here to get to know the locations in Berlin and Einbeck – just to say hello to the people in my team, to understand the culture and the employees. That was a great first impression!

Did you previously have roots in agriculture?

I grew up north of Einbeck near Alfeld, where my grandfather had a farm that is now run by my cousin. Even as a little boy, I used to stand in the fields and hoe the shoots early in the morning. That’s why the smell in production always reminds me of home – I can hardly wait for spring to come so I can go out into the fields and see the work we’re doing there, too.

What’s your ambition?

Two principles are particularly important to me at the moment: To start off by being really curious and in a learning mode – soaking up knowledge and listening. And the other is to be open to change, to transformation. My appointment means I’ve moved to a new industry, and I don’t bring decades of experience in agriculture with me. It would therefore be presumptuous to always proceed according to a certain pattern. I feel it’s much more important to work together as a team and look together at what is going great, where we have opportunities to grow our commercial success and to formulate that together as a team.

Quite a bit has already happened at KWS in the last few weeks.

Exactly. We’ve signed a new credit line. This means that we have replaced our existing syndicated loan of €200 million with a new credit line and extended it with an option for a further €100 million. We never used the previous credit line in the past, but having it as a reserve makes a lot of sense and also demonstrates confidence in our business. It’s also the first time that sustainability criteria have played a role – if we continue to pursue our Sustainability Ambition 2030 and achieve the targets, we will receive more favorable financing conditions in return. So it’s a win-win situation for KWS and also for nature. The fact that sustainability indicators are underpinned by very concrete financial KPIs shows that it’s definitely worth continuing on this path. The Treasury team has done a great job negotiating this outcome over the last few months!