Novonesis B Unsp/Adr

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Novozymes' first quarter conference call. My name is Tobias Björklund and I'm the head of investor relations here at Novozymes. At this call, our CEO, Esther Bache, and our CFO, Lars Green, will review our performance for the first quarter and the outlook for the full year. Our executive team, including its two newest members, Amy Byrick and Mårten Rasmussen, are also present. The entire call will last for around 50 minutes, including time for questions at the end. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that the information presented during the call is unaudited and that management may make forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in any forward-looking statements. With this, I now hand you over to our CEO, Esther Bacher. Esther, please.

Thank you, Tobias, and thank you all for calling in today. Before we dive into our performance, I'd like to take this opportunity to extend my warmest welcome to Amy and Morten. Most of you will remember that back in September of last year, we simplified our organizational structure in order to strengthen our customer focus and streamline the innovation process. As part of that organizational change, we created two new EVP areas. The first new area is strategy and business transformation, will be headed by Amy. Her main responsibility is to anchor the strategic direction of the company with focus on commercial excellence, digital transformation and new business development. The second area is people, sustainability and brand, which will be headed by Morton. It is his responsibility to drive our already market-leading sustainability effort, as well as our human resource, branding and public relationship agendas. With that brief introduction, I'll now hand over to Amy and Morten so that each can say a few words about themselves. Amy, if you would go first, please.

Thanks, Esther, and good morning, everyone. My name is Amy Beirich, and as Esther mentioned, I'll be heading the area of strategy and business transformation. Prior to joining Novozymes, I spent almost two decades working in the food and beverage space, first with Amcor and later at DuPont. I've held various roles within strategy, marketing, sales, and general management. And most recently, I led the global food and beverage business unit in DuPont Nutrition and Biosciences. I'm very much looking forward to working with a team of people with just a tremendous appetite for change, as well as an amazing energy, focus, and dedication to accelerate growth. And now I'll hand over to Morten.