Huub Savelkouls retired from Philip Morris International (PMI) after a 26 year career. His legacy is to have sparked the company’s business transformation, pushing for fundamental change by replacing cigarettes with better alternatives, to the benefit of smokers, society and shareholders. Having experienced the power of stakeholder engagement to drive positive change, he is now focused on working with companies, investors and NGOs to promote corporate transformations and reforms in fiscal, monetary, and economic policies. His aim is to make our world more equitable and sustainable, with particular focus on climate change.
A quantitative economist by training, Huub successfully advocated for economic and fiscal policies that encourage industry to innovate and transform in the public interest and to address the societal costs of smoking. Appointed as the company’s first Chief Sustainability Officer, he developed and implemented a groundbreaking approach to sustainability and corporate purpose, making PMI the first United States Corporation with a formal Statement of Purpose. Huub represented the company in various boards and membership organizations, including economiesuisse, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Huub is a Dutch national with a degree in Business Econometrics from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He is married, with one daughter and lives in Switzerland.