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    Benefits by design: Novonesis CEO’s strategy for sustainable growth

    October 13, 2025 • by Jean-François Manzoni in I by IMD Podcasts • Podcast availablePodcast available

    Novonesis CEO Ester Baiget explains how advanced tech and a unique ‘library of strengths’ are reshaping food production and laundry solutions worldwide....

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    In conversation with IMD’s Jean-François Manzoni, Novonesis CEO Ester Baiget discusses how the Danish biosolutions powerhouse uses advanced tech and its ‘library of strengths’ to transform food production and laundry processes.

     

    Novonesis is rapidly becoming the world leader in the field of biosolutions. By leveraging the power of microbiology with science, it is increasingly transforming the way the world produces, consumes, and lives.

    Born from the 2024 merger of enzyme and cultures specialists, Novonesis has integrated complex technologies and navigated regulatory roadblocks. But blending two corporate cultures requires more than science alone. For CEO Ester Baiget, the key is leadership rooted in humility, transparency, and a relentless focus on sustainable growth.

    Expert

    Ester Baiget

    President and CEO of Novonesis

    Ester Baiget is President and CEO of Novonesis and Vice-Chair of The B Team. An experienced international leader with a strong track-record, Baiget joined Novozymes after working as president for Dow’s Industrial Solutions business unit. Baiget holds a degree in chemical engineering and an MBA from the University of Tarragona, Spain.

    Authors

    Jean-François Manzoni

    Jean-François Manzoni

    Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development at IMD

    Jean-François Manzoni (JFM) is Professor of Leadership, Organizational Development and Corporate Governance at IMD, where he served as President and Nestlé Professor from 2017 to 2024. His research, teaching, and consulting activities are focused on leadership, the development of high-performance organizations and corporate governance. In recent years JFM has also been increasingly focused on finding ways to ensure leadership development interventions have lasting impact, particularly through the use of technology-mediated approaches, and on closing the growing managerial “knowing-doing gap”, i.e., the gap between what managers kind of know they should be doing and the extent to which they actually behave that way in practice.

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