Jean-Baptiste Santoul about the Henkel Innovation Challenge

Be inspired by the experiences of students and Henkel managers and find out what it means to be a part of the Henkel Innovation Challenge.

“Meeting Jean-Baptiste Santoul in Wash and Coffee in Amsterdam”

Yesterday evening we received a phone call from Jean-Baptiste Santoul, General Manager Laundry & Home Care Benelux at Henkel. “Are you still in Amsterdam?” He asked. “I want to share with you the new sustainability strategy that we developed. It’s called Achieving more with less. Can we meet in Wash & Coffee?”

“Achieving More with Less” – Jean-Baptiste Santoul

We’re in the Wash & Coffee in the center of Amsterdam, having a cafe latte and talking to Jean-Baptiste Santoul, General Manager at Henkel Laundry & Home Care.

“Founder Henkel Innovation Challenge” – Jean-Baptiste Santoul

It is raining softly as the taxi drops me off at Terminal 2 of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. I check in for my flight to Dubai and make my way to the duty free area, to buy some magazines at the newsstand. “I want to buy Time magazine and Wallpaper,” I think out loud.

“The Sound of Silence”

Jean-Baptiste:

I worked in Tunisia as General Manager for Henkel from 2002 to 2005.
Professionally, it was a great experience, but 
I learned a lot on a personal level too.
Our ocasional weekend trips into the Sahara desert were especially powerful.
One of the most impressive things was the sound of silence.

“Sustainability through innovation”

” Achieving more with less is our new Sustainability Strategy 2030,” Jean-Baptiste says, “the goal is achieving more with less and tripling efficiency.”

“That sounds ambitious,” I say “does this include the entire value chain?”

“The entire value chain and all business sectors,” Jean-Baptiste says. “By 2030, we want to become three times more efficient. Triple the value we create without increasing our footprint made by our operations, products and services.”