AAK Annual Report 2019

117 required for the Board to reach well-informed decisions. The CEO also maintains continual dialogue with the Chairman of the Board and keeps him informed of the development and financial position of the Company and the Group. AAK’s Group management team consists of twelve persons from five countries: the CEO, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who is also responsible for Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Communications, Global IT and Global Foodservice, Chief Strategy & Sustaina- bility Officer, who is also responsible for People and Corporate Branding, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), President Global Operations and President Global Sourcing & Trading, as well as five persons in charge of business areas/regions/industries and one Senior advisor. The Group management team meets every other month and deals with the Group’s financial devel- opment, investments, synergy and productivity projects, acquisitions, Group-wide development projects, leadership and competence supply and other strategic issues. The meetings are chaired by the CEO, who make decisions in consultation with the other members of the Group management team. The Group has a small number of Group employees, who are responsible for Group-wide activities, such as financial performance, tax, IT, internal control, strategy, investor relations, information and legal issues. The CEO and Group management team are presented on pages 50–51. For remuneration principles and salaries and other fees paid to the CEO and Group management team, please see Note 8. AAK’s business areas are Food Ingredients, Chocolate & Confectionery Fats and Technical Products & Feed. The heads of each business area are responsible for goals, strategies, product development and day-to-day business issues, as well as for profit, cash flow and balance sheets for the unit in question. The business areas in turn are organized into different sectors with responsibility for day-to-day business issues. Direction is exercised through internal boards, which meet four times a year. AAK’s CEO chairs the meetings. Other executives are co-opted as necessary. In all countries where AAK has subsidiaries, a Country Manager has legal charge of operations. The Country Manager’s task is to represent AAK vis-à-vis public authorities in the country, to coordinate operations on the ground, organization and Group-wide procedures/projects and to ensure that Group-wide guidelines are complied with. For each such country, one member of the Group management team has been appointed to have overall responsibility for operations. This person is the superior of the Country Manager, and in most cases acts as Chairman of the local legal board. The Board’s description of internal control and risk management relating to financial reporting The Board is responsible for AAK’s internal control, the overall purpose of which is to protect the owners’ investments and the Company’s assets. The Board shall provide a description of how internal control and risk management relating to financial reporting are organized in a separate section of this Corporate Governance Report. Internal control relating to financial reporting is a process involving the Board, the company management team and personnel. The process has been designed to ensure the relia- bility of external reporting. According to the commonly accepted framework established for this purpose, internal control is usually described from five different aspects, which are described below. The control environment forms the basis for internal management and control. Risk assessment and risk management mean that the management is aware of and has itself assessed and analyzed risks and threats to operations. Control activities are the measures and procedures designed by the management to prevent errors from arising and for discovering and correcting errors that do arise. In order for individual tasks to be carried out in a satisfactory manner, the personnel in an organization need to have access to current and relevant information. The final module of the model relates to follow-up of internal management and the design and effectiveness of controls. Control environment AAK’s organization is designed to facilitate quick deci- sion-making. Operational decisions are therefore made at business area or subsidiary level, while decisions about strategies, acquisitions and overriding financial issues are taken by the company’s Board and Group management team. The organization is characterized