Tony’s Chocolonely Creates ‘Tony’s Mission Lock’ to Secure Its Mission Indefinitely

Tony’s Mission Lock is a brand-new legal structure that utilizes a golden share to forever protect Tony’s mission of eliminating child – and illegal labor in the chocolate industry, regardless of the shareholder structure of the company.

This groundbreaking new mechanism will be overseen by three experienced Mission Guardians, Seth Goldman, Ikenna Azuike and Anne-Wil Dijkstra.

Holding a golden share in the company, Mission Guardians will have the power to prevent any legal changes to the definition of the company’s mission. Mission Guardians will have several escalation levers to ultimately hold Tony’s leadership team to account publicly and judicially.

Tony’s hopes that the Tony’s Mission Lock structure will act as an inspiration to other companies looking to protect their mission for the long term. Tony’s mission of eradicating exploitation in the chocolate industry, its 5 Sourcing Principles and the legal obligation of Tony’s leadership team to uphold these are already embedded in Tony’s Articles of Association. The company is now going one step further to indefinitely safeguard the company’s purpose, by introducing a brand-new governing structure: Tony’s Mission Lock.

In addition to holding a golden share, Mission Guardians have access to a suite of tools that they can utilize when they believe a major breach of the company’s mission-related responsibilities may be happening.

This ‘break glass in emergency’ approach enables them to work proactively and collaboratively with senior management to first understand the detail behind any serious concerns expressed to them – and swiftly resolve these. Any stakeholder who has a relationship with the company can raise any serious concerns anonymously with the Mission Guardians, including employees, cocoa farmers, business partners and Choco Fans via: contact@tonysmissionlock.org.

The Mission Guardians and Tony’s Chief Chocolonely, Douglas Lamont, will officially sign the structure’s formation document live at Tony’s FAIR, on June 8, 2023, in Amsterdam.