Christopher Bylone van Sandwyk is the Global Director, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion at IFF. Through a collaborative approach, he built the DEI initiative from the ground up over five years. The company expanded maternity and paternity leave offerings to include 16 weeks of fully paid leave for all employees, regardless of their gender identity / expression for the birth or adoption of a child. He is part of the team that launched the 2030 ESG + Strategy Do More Good Plan that establishes ambitious DEI goals for more inclusion on the Board of Directors and in management, implementation of inclusive policies, and increase the accessibility of IFF for people with disabilities.
Christopher developed the Inclusion Competency Model, which defines an inclusive colleague as a person committed to diversity who is actively inclusive, has multicultural agility, and is purposefully unbiased. These competencies are so foundational, they are written into the IFF Code of Conduct. The company believes in holding themselves accountable; resulting in the Executive Committee having 5% of their annual bonus tied to gender representation goals for 2022. Christopher also advanced eight Colleague Communities, by obtaining Executive Committee member sponsorship for each.
FAVORITE QUOTE: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelo