‘Businesses need to recognise themselves as an integral part of society’ – Norman Aquilina

Simonds Farsons Cisk plc CEO Norman Aquilina has stated that businesses must strike a balance between their profitability ambitions and maintaining a clear corporate purpose, to further integrate them with society.

In a social media post on Sunday, he remarked that due to businesses getting caught up in their daily competitive struggles, “it is easy to get lost in simply focusing on profitability while overlooking that sense of purpose”. However, establishing a “clear and meaningful” corporate purpose makes for “good business”.

“Without in any way downplaying the importance of every business adopting its commercial strategy and developing its financial interests, there is added value in operating as a responsible corporate citizen,” Mr Aquilina shared.

He added that businesses “need to recognise themselves as an integral part of society and cannot solely gauge their performance on financial merit”.

Additionally, businesses have to target a balance between a “responsible business approach” and optimising shareholder value while remaining “sensitive towards all stakeholders’ interests”.

“Businesses need to adopt a culture anchored in a vision combining entrepreneurship and responsibility, where purpose and performance go hand in hand,” Mr Aquilina continued.

“It is correct, indeed expected, to have ambitions for profitable growth, but it is likewise correct to balance profit with purpose,” he concluded.

Mr Aquilina joined Simonds Farsons Cisk in 2004 as Managing Director of its subsidiary Quintano Foods, and was appointed Group Chief Commercial Officer in 2007. In 2010, he was named Group CEO and has since led its management team towards the building-up of a more competitive business model along with “consistent profitable growth”.