Philip Morris International's bet on a smoke-free future

Executive overview

PMI, the maker of Marlboro, has spent a decade redirecting its business away from cigarettes toward smoke-free alternatives — most notably IQOS. Jacek Olczak, PMI's CEO, argues that cigarettes will disappear within 10 years as better technology becomes available to the world's 1 billion smokers.

The company has invested heavily in R&D to develop products that eliminate combustion, framing the pivot as both a commercial opportunity and a public health imperative.

If cigarettes kill, the only responsible strategy is to make them obsolete — starting with your own product.

The case for the smoke-free pivot

• PMI began the shift roughly 10 years ago, investing in alternatives to combustion-based tobacco
• IQOS heats rather than burns tobacco, removing the smoke that causes most smoking-related harm
• The goal is to convert existing smokers — not recruit new ones
• PMI has reached approximately 20 million smoke-free product users

Leadership and long-term vision

• Olczak spent 30 years at PMI before becoming CEO, gaining experience across operations and multiple business functions
• His motivation for the transformation is framed around saving lives, not just revenue diversification
• He describes the company's ambition as evolving toward a healthcare-adjacent role
• A 60–70% probability of success on any major initiative is treated as sufficient grounds to act

Execution and decision-making

• Large-scale transformation requires openness to being wrong and willingness to course-correct
• PMI's R&D investment underpins confidence that smoke-free products can replace cigarettes at scale
• Olczak emphasises that companies are ultimately their people — culture and conviction drive the transition
• No transformation is guaranteed; acting on strong conviction rather than certainty is the operating principle