2012 has been another strong year for Unilever, building further on the good performance in 2011. Despite a challenging economic environment,
the Group continued to grow above its markets, delivering strong top and bottom line results. The transformation of Unilever to a sustainable growth
company is well on track.
Unilever’s sustained performance in these difficult markets is testament to the strength and clarity of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) and the Compass strategy developed by Paul Polman and his management team. The USLP is providing the Group with an inspiring and highly differentiated growth model, which is driving performance, energising employees and increasingly being recognised externally as a standard for responsible business. The Boards have been impressed again this year by the ways in which the strategy is being brought to life in different parts of the Group, and the above average results versus our peer group is testimony to this.
Maintaining good governance
Good governance is essential for the long-term success of the Group, and I am pleased to introduce our Corporate Governance report on pages 44 to 81, which sets out how Unilever conducts its operations in accordance with internationally accepted principles of good corporate governance. We are very alert to the current environment around the remuneration arrangements for Executive Directors and we remain committed to linking pay to the longer-term objectives of Unilever and, in turn, the longer-term interests of shareholders. We set out more details on our approach in our Directors’ Remuneration Report on pages 62 to 81.
Strengthening the Boards
A key role for the Boards is to provide adequately for their succession, and I am very pleased that Laura Cha, Mary Ma and John Rishton have agreed to join us and are being proposed for election at the AGMs in 2013. Unilever continues to appoint directors based on their wide-ranging experience, backgrounds, skills, knowledge and insight, and I am confident that these three directors will further strengthen the diversity of gender and experience already on the Boards and improve it further. Additional information on these directors and the succession planning process
undertaken is given in the Corporate Governance report and their biographies will be included in the 2013 AGM Notices which will be available on our website at www.unilever.com/agm from 2 April 2013. Sunil Bharti Mittal will not offer himself for re-election at the 2013 AGMs. I would like to
thank Sunil for his contribution to Unilever as a Non-Executive Director
