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PMI Announces Leadership Succession

Photo: PMI
Louis Camilleri has retired as chairman of the board of Philip Morris International (PMI) for personal reasons. PMI has appointed its CEO, André Calantzopoulos, as executive chairman, to take effect immediately prior to the company’s annual meeting of shareholders in May 2021.
Lucio Noto, PMI’s independent presiding director, will serve as interim chairman until the succession of Calantzopoulos in May. PMI’s current chief operating officer, Jacek Olczak, will succeed Calantzopoulos as chief executive officer immediately after the May meeting. It is anticipated that Olczak will also be nominated for election to the board of directors at the meeting. Olczak has served as PMI’s chief operating officer since January 2018 and served as chief financial officer from August 2012 through December 2018.
According to PMI, the planned succession promises a seamless transition and continuity of leadership. Camilleri, Calantzopoulos and Olczak have worked closely together since PMI became an independent company. They share a single strategic vision, and under their combined leadership, PMI has marked significant achievements, including its business transformation and indisputable leadership in the smoke-free product category.
Andre Calantzopoulos
“I am delighted to hand over the chairman of the board role to André following his decision to relinquish his CEO responsibilities,” Camilleri said in a statement. “I am equally delighted to see Jacek named to the helm of the company as of May 2021. He is a worthy successor to André, given his track record with PMI and his leadership qualities. Contemplating my 40-year PMI career, it has been an enormous privilege to serve this wonderful company, its board, its employees, and its shareholders. I want to wholeheartedly thank you all for this amazing journey that has made PMI the leading and most progressive tobacco company in the world. I am stepping down with the firm belief that the company is in great hands to accomplish its smoke-free vision.”
Lucio Noto
“The decisions announced today are the result of a rigorous and well-executed multi-year succession plan and are a clear demonstration of how well our company is governed,” said Noto, speaking on behalf of the board of directors. “The board is assured that under Jacek’s and André’s leadership and guidance, PMI will continue to innovate, prosper, and enhance shareholder value. I know I speak for all of us in expressing my profound gratitude to Louis for his enormous dedication and his tremendous contributions to our company throughout his stellar career. The members of the board will all miss him dearly.”
“It is an honor to follow in the footsteps of our chairman and former CEO, Louis Camilleri,” said Calantzopoulos. “On behalf of the PMI leadership, I would like to express our profound appreciation for his amazing contributions to the success of our company and for his leadership, guidance, devotion, and, above all, humanity. Beyond the unrivaled executive, we will all miss an outstanding person and a friend.”
Calantzopoulos continued: “During my seven years as CEO, we have positioned PMI for the future and created better, science-based options for those adults who would otherwise continue to smoke. We have the world’s leading product portfolio in both combustible and smoke-free products, an outstanding management team, and a high-performing, fast-learning organization across the world. We are perfectly poised for continued success. I am very pleased to hand over the CEO responsibility to Jacek. Having worked closely with Jacek for decades, I know well that his passion for the company and our employees, drive for results, and deep knowledge of our products, systems, values, and investors make him the ideal leader to ensure the continued growth of our business and to deliver shareholder value.
“I want to express my gratitude to our board, senior executives, employees, business partners, and shareholders for their support throughout my executive career. You have been an invaluable source of inspiration and strength, and I feel honored that I had the opportunity to work alongside all of you.”
Jacek Olczak
“I am humbled to have the opportunity to lead PMI,” said Olczak. “Working alongside André on PMI’s transformation, we have built the capabilities to continue delivering the unsmoke vision and beyond. I am committed to continuing to work with André in his new role and with the entire team at PMI to deliver on the enormous business opportunity of a smoke-free future, to the benefit of our consumers, shareholders, and society.”
Olczak, 55 joined the company in 1993 and worked in finance and general management positions across Europe, including as managing director of PMI’s markets in Poland and Germany and as president of the European Union Region before his appointment as chief financial officer of PMI in 2012. He holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Lodz, Poland.
The board of directors has also nominated a new director, Michel Combes, effective immediately.
A French businessman, Combes is president of SoftBank Group International and oversees several Softbank portfolio companies. He was chief financial officer and then CEO and a member of the board of directors of Sprint, CEO of Vodafone Europe, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, CEO and chief operating officer of Altice, and chairman and CEO of SFR Group. Prior, he held several positions within French ministries, at France Telecom, and at Télédiffusion de France.

December 11, 2020
Altria Certified as Great Place to Work

Photo: Altria Group
Altria Group has been certified a Great Place to Work by Great Place to Work, a global authority on workplace culture, employee experience and the leadership behaviors proven to deliver market-leading revenue and increased innovation.
“We are thrilled to be Great Place to Work-Certified and particularly pleased that more than 90 percent of employees who participated in the survey said that Altria is a great place to work,” said Charlie Whitaker, Altria’s senior vice president, chief human resources officer and chief compliance officer, in a statement. “Engaged, empowered and appreciated employees are critical to achieving our ten-year Vision to responsibly lead the transition of adult smokers to a non-combustible future.”
According to a survey fielded by Great Place to Work, of the employees who took the survey, 94 percent believe that Altria promotes flexibility, has ethical leadership, provides a good working environment, and supports its communities. 2020 was the first year that Altria participated in the Great Place to Work certification process.
“We congratulate Altria on their Certification,” said Sarah Lewis-Kulin, vice president of best workplace list research at Great Place to Work. “Organizations that earn their employees’ trust create great workplace cultures that deliver outstanding business results.”
December 11, 2020
KT&G Recognized for Intellectual Property

KT&G was selected as the “Intellectual Property Management Enterprise of the Year” at the 2020 KINPA annual conference hosted by the Korea Intellectual Property Association. The photo features Kim Jong-yeol, Head of the Future Technology Research Institute at the KT&G R&D headquarters. (Photo: KT&G)
KT&G received the Commissioner Award from the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) at the Intellectual Property Management Enterprise of the Year ceremony organized by the KIPO and the Korea Intellectual Property Association (KINPA) on Dec. 8.
The award ceremony was hosted to identify enterprises that contributed to the development of national industries by strengthening the capacity of intellectual properties at enterprises and reflecting them in their management activities. KT&G has reportedly received excellent reviews in the creation of intellectual property and rights, including patents, as well as intellectual property management.
Between 2016 and 2019, KT&G increased its number of patent applications from 43 to 431.
“Through this award, KT&G’s technology was recognized once again since receiving the prime minister’s citation on the Day of Invention in June,” said Chi-beom Oh, head of KT&G’s R&D division, in a statement. “We will continue to lead the global tobacco market by focusing our competencies on developing our own technologies and making patent applications.”
December 10, 2020
Tobacco Firms Urged to Submit Health Warnings

Image: Tobacco Reporter archive
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is encouraging tobacco companies to submit their plans for compliance with the agency’s upcoming graphic health warning requirements as soon as possible, and in any event by March 16, 2021.
Following two postponements, the effective date for graphic health warnings is now Jan. 14, 22.
The FDA’s final rule, “Required Warnings for Cigarette Packages and Advertisements,” establishes new required cigarette health warnings for cigarette packages and advertisements. Each required warning, comprising a textual warning statement and its accompanying color graphic, must be accurately reproduced as shown in the materials contained in “Required Cigarette Health Warnings, 2020.”
The FDA says it intends to revise its relevant guidance documents related to the rule with the new effective date.
Tobacco companies may contact CTP with questions about the effective date.
The graphic health warning requirements had originally been scheduled to take effect on June 18, 2021. Due the Covid-19 pandemic, they were postponed to Oct. 16, 2021.
In November, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Liggett Group and ITG Brands, along with cigarette retailers, asked for further postponement. The companies argued they would suffer irreparable harm if they were forced to spend millions of dollars to comply with a rule that might soon be invalidated.
“These expenditures of resources for the purpose of meeting the rule’s requirements constitute irreparable harm because plaintiffs cannot recover money damages should the rule and/or the graphic-warning requirement in the Tobacco Control Act be invalidated,” the companies stated.
On Dec. 2, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted their request and postponed the effective date by an additional 90 days.

December 10, 2020
BAT Publishes First Human Rights Report

Image: BAT
British American Tobacco (BAT) has become the first tobacco company to publish a Human Rights Report. The report coincides with U.N. Human Rights Day and highlights the company’s commitment and actions to protect human rights across its global business and supply chain. BAT has also announced a commitment to aim for zero child labor in its agricultural supply chain by 2025.
Jack Bowles
“We recognize that forced labor is a serious risk in agricultural supply chains, and I am proud that we had zero reported cases of forced labor in 2019,” said Jack Bowles, BAT CEO, in a statement. “We adopt a zero-tolerance approach to forced labor whilst having a clear commitment to aim for our tobacco supply chain to also be free of child labor by 2025.”
BAT’s Human Rights Report is aligned with the United Nations Guiding Principles Reporting Framework. The report highlights the measures BAT takes to promote, uphold and protect human rights across its supply chain, which includes 90,000 directly contracted farmers. The report also features case studies to showcase partnerships and activities aimed at improving farmer livelihoods and securing the long-term sustainability of rural communities.
This year’s U.N. Human Rights Day focuses on the global impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on human rights. BAT’s report highlights many of the initiatives the company has adopted to address the pandemic, including developing a potential Covid-19 vaccine candidate; producing and distributing protective equipment and sanitizer; providing financial support to suppliers where required; and ensuring access to Covid-19-secure workplaces for workers throughout the supply chain.

December 10, 2020
Study: ‘Tobacco-21’ Working as Intended

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
Sales of cigarette brands disproportionally consumed by young people have fallen in jurisdictions that raised the minimum purchase age to 21, according to new research published in Tobacco Control.
“Tobacco 21” (T21) policies proliferated at state and local levels across the United States before a federal policy was adopted in late 2019. The authors of the study examined demographic patterns of cigarette brand purchasing to evaluate the effectiveness of the laws.
To capture the effect of T21 implementation on cigarette sales, they used universal product code-level data from Nielsen Scantrack data covering January 2015 to October 2019.
“Sales of disproportionately young brands declined after T21 implementation,” the researchers wrote in an abstract of their study. “T21 policy implementation dates fit disproportionately young brand sales trends better than 99 percent of adjusted randomized placebo models. T21 implementation fit disproportionately old brand sales trends better than just 1 percent of adjusted randomized placebo models.”

December 9, 2020
Apartment Smoking Ban Sent Back to Committee

Photo: ninjason from Pixabay
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday rejected a proposed ban on smoking or vaping tobacco in apartments that it voted for just last week, reports The San Francisco Examiner.
The board must approve legislation in two separate votes. Typically, the second vote is perfunctory.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who initially supported the ban, said that he heard from many long-term tenants on fixed income raising concerns about the proposal since his vote and he was “remarkably moved in the last week by what I have heard from them.”
Critics expressed concern about the impacts the measure could have on longstanding renters, including fines of up to $1,000 per day and the potential for tenant harassment. The proposal does say a violation could not be grounds for an eviction.
“I really am fearful that the unintended impacts could cause more harm to long term tenants in my district and other districts,” Peskin said. “I do want to address the harm of secondhand smoke in multi-unit residential buildings, but I think there are better ways to address this.”
Approval of the legislation, which controversially exempted marijuana smoking, would have made San Francisco the largest city in the United States to adopt a smoking ban in multi-unit buildings.
Board President Norman Yee’s said he was disappointed by the failure of the measure to pass in the second vote.
“Today’s vote failed to prioritize the health of our most vulnerable community members,” Yee said. “It is completely backwards that we would defend the rights of people to smoke in their own homes over the rights of others to breathe safely.”
December 9, 2020
BAT Performing Despite Uncertain Environment

Photo: Gabriel Stabinger | BAT
Maintaining its 2020 guidance, British American Tobacco said it expects constant currency adjusted revenue growth to be at the high end of the 1-3 percent range this year.
Jack Bowles
“We are growing our ‘new category’ business as fast as possible and we are proud to now have around 13 million non-combustible product consumers,” said BAT CEO Jack Bowles in a trading update. “We are continuing to increase investment in our three new categories of potentially reduced risk cigarette alternatives, capitalizing on our momentum, while continuing to deliver on our financial commitments.”
Bowles said BAT remains committed to it 2025 new category revenue ambition of £5 billion ($6.73 billion). “While the environment remains uncertain, due to the continuing challenges of Covid-19, the business is performing strongly,” he said.
According to BAT, Vuse is now the fastest growing international vapor brand, growing at 7 percentage points versus fiscal year 2019 to a 26 percent value share in the year to September in the world’s top-5 vapor markets.
BAT’s Glo tobacco heating device has reached a 5.9 percent volume share of total nicotine in Japan.
Meanwhile, the Velo and Lyft modern oral brands have consolidated their leadership in many international markets. In the U.S., BAT boosted its modern oral portfolio with the acquisition of Dryft, expanding the product range from four stock-keeping units to 28, with representation in the above 6mg segment and additional flavors.
“Reducing the health impact of our business through providing a range of enjoyable and less risky products is the greatest contribution we can make to society,” said Bowles. “We continue to be clear that combustible cigarettes pose serious health risks, and the only way to avoid these risks is not to start or to quit. BAT encourages those who would otherwise continue to smoke to switch completely to scientifically substantiated reduced risk alternatives.”
December 9, 2020
Altria Earns Double ‘A’ for Climate And Water

Photo: Altria Group
Altria Group has been awarded a double ‘A’ rating for tackling climate change and protecting water security by CDP, a nonprofit that runs a global disclosure system on managing environmental impact. Altria ranks among the 1 percent of companies that achieved a double ‘A’ out of 5,800-plus businesses scored by CDP in 2020.
“We recognize the critical importance of addressing environmental challenges and have set a high bar for ourselves,” said Jennifer Hunter, senior vice president of corporate citizenship, in a statement. “In pursuit of our 10-year vision, we established ambitious goals to address climate change and water security, like achieving 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030, 100 percent water neutrality annually and aligning our business with the most ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.”
Earlier this year, Altria announced that its greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets were approved for the first time by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The Scope 1 and Scope 2 target covering greenhouse gas emissions from Altria’s operations is consistent with reductions required to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a goal that the latest climate science says is needed to prevent the most damaging effects of climate change. The Scope 3 target meets the criteria for ambitious value chain goals and current best practice.
CDP’s annual environmental disclosure and scoring process is widely recognized as the gold standard of corporate environmental transparency. A detailed and independent methodology is used, allocating a score of A to D- based on the comprehensiveness of disclosure, awareness and management of environmental risks and demonstration of best practices associated with environmental leadership, such as setting ambitious and meaningful targets. Those that don’t disclose or provided insufficient information are marked with an F.
CDP also recognized Philip Morris International, Japan Tobacco and Imperial Brands for their environmental commitments.
December 9, 2020
PMI Credited for Sustainability

Photo: PMI
Philip Morris International (PMI) has become one of just 10 companies worldwide to receive CDP’s prestigious “triple-A” score for its efforts in combating climate change, protecting forests, and water security.
It’s the first year PMI has achieved the top result in each of the three categories. CDP is an international non-profit organization that uses data to help decision-makers reduce risk, capitalize on opportunities, and drive action toward achieving the world’s sustainability goals.
“We are proud and humbled to have obtained CDP’s top score for our sustainability efforts. Climate change is one of the most significant crises of our lifetime,” said Massimo Andolina, PMI’s senior vice president of operations, in a statement. “We strongly believe that PMI must play its part in protecting our planet by reducing our environmental impact across our value chain and by defining and executing strategies and initiatives to achieve our long-term targets.”
This marks the seventh year that PMI has ranked on CDP’s A List for Climate Change. For the previous year, PMI also earned a position on the Water Security A List, and an A- for its forest disclosure.
“We would like to thank our teams and our suppliers all over the world for building, day by day, a more resilient and sustainable value chain, and for this fantastic achievement,” said Laurence Ruffieux, PMI’s director of operations sustainability. “We are honored by CDP’s recognition of our efforts, inspiring us to continue to strengthen our strategies to achieve our targets of zero deforestation and carbon neutrality in our direct operations by 2030, and sustainable water stewardship.”
CDP’s annual environmental disclosure and scoring process is widely recognized as the gold standard of corporate environmental transparency. In 2020, more than 515 investors with over $106 trillion in assets and 150-plus major purchasers with $4 trillion in procurement spend requested companies to disclose data on environmental impacts, risks, and opportunities through CDP’s platform. Over 9,600 responded—the highest ever total.
CDP also recognized Japan Tobacco and Imperial Brands for corporate sustainability.
December 8, 2020