Company: SXT
Filing Date: 2025-03-12
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001140361-25-008248
Chunk: 22

Company: SENSIENT TECHNOLOGIES CORP
Filing Date: 2025-03-12
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 22
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. Interested parties who wish to make their views or concerns known regarding these or other matters may communicate with management, with our Lead Director or any of our other independent directors, or with the Board as a whole in writing addressed to the attention of the Company Secretary. The Company’s Corporate Governance Guidelines provide that all communications to Board members will be relayed by the Company Secretary to the appropriate Board members unless the content is obviously inappropriate for Board review. Director Independence The Company’s Corporate Governance Guidelines provide guidelines for determining whether a director is independent from management. For a director to be considered independent, the Board must make an affirmative determination that the director has no material relationship with the Company (either directly or as a partner, shareholder, or officer of an organization that has a relationship with the Company). The guidelines also incorporate the specific criteria reflected in the currently applicable New York Stock Exchange rules to assist the Board in determining whether a director has a material relationship with the Company. In addition, the guidelines state that no director shall be considered independent unless he or she meets the requirements for independence under applicable securities laws. Members of the Audit Committee and of the Compensation and Development Committee are subject to additional independence requirements. For purposes of determining independence, the “Company” includes any parent or subsidiary in a consolidated group with the Company. Ms. Whitelaw has been a Board member of the Company for over thirty years. Her perspective, experience, deep insight into the Company and its operations, and continued constructive feedback and guidance have been invaluable to the Company for her tenure with the Board. As further discussed below, we do not believe that tenure alone presumptively renders a Board member to be not independent. While we do not believe that she has any relationship with the Company that would render her unable to be independent, we recognize that certain investors, stakeholders, advisory firms, and other parties may question whether such a lengthy tenure impacts Ms. Whitelaw’s ability to be independent. As a result, beginning in February 2023, the Board has considered the length of Ms. Whitelaw’s tenure to be exceptional circumstances and therefore has not conclusively determined that Ms. Whitelaw is independent under the applicable rules of the New York Stock Exchange and the SEC, and the Company’s independence criteria.

23

Based on the applicable rules of the New York Stock Exchange and the SEC and the Company’s independence criteria, the Board has affirmatively determined that Messrs. Bruggeman, Jain, and Morrison, Drs. Carleone, Ferruzzi, and Landry, and M