"Navratil isn't some parachuted consultant or a rebuffed senior executive from one of the company's rivals. He's a Nestlé lifer with 25 years across the Anglo-Swiss giant's operations. He speaks multiple languages, holds an MBA, and has the steely look of someone who isn't here to fuck about. More importantly, he's done both the country GM path, successfully running Honduras, and then the HQ role, eventually leading Nespresso. He knows how the machine works. His announcement interview immediately sets the tone."
"His style isn't the performative empathy beloved of LinkedIn leadership gurus. None of that soft, mushy bollocks that portrays managers as myopic efficiency bullies in contrast to selfless, empathetic leaders who combine Joan of Arc with Mahatma Gandhi. That nonsense always rings false with me. The leaders I've respected were objective, smart, driven, and merciless when they needed to be. Navratil fits that bill perfectly."
Philipp Navratil became Nestlé CEO after two successors departed within a year, bringing 25 years of internal experience and operational credibility. He combines country GM experience, HQ leadership of Nespresso, multilingualism, and an MBA with a terse, delivery-focused management style. He rejects performative empathy and emphasizes metrics, accountability, rewards for delivery, and ruthless talent assessment. His blunt, no-nonsense rhetoric prompted a swift positive market reaction, including a notable share-price jump. The approach signals a shift toward faster, marketing-led decision making and stricter performance management to address entrenched corporate stagnation.
Read at The Drum
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]