{"id":3164,"date":"2026-02-12T18:13:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/3164\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T18:13:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:13:42","slug":"new-nestle-ceo-joined-the-company-straight-out-of-college-like-mary-barra-and-doug-mcmillon-he-climbed-all-the-way-to-the-top-at-a-single-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/3164\/","title":{"rendered":"New Nestl\u00e9 CEO joined the company straight out of college\u2014like Mary Barra and Doug McMillon, he climbed all the way to the top at a single company"},"content":{"rendered":"

The battle for the corner office may be more competitive than ever before\u2014with promotions today seeming few and far between<\/a>; in fact, some 75% of workers leave jobs before ever being promoted, according to ADP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, playing the long game also has its benefits\u2014and Philipp Navratil<\/a> is the latest example of that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 49-year-old was just named the CEO of Nestl\u00e9<\/a>, the multinational food and drink conglomerate consisting of brands like Nespresso, KitKat, and Cheerios, after spending his entire career climbing the same ladder.<\/p>\n

Navratil first joined Nestl\u00e9 as an internal auditor in 2001, fresh out of obtaining his MBA<\/a> from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. He slowly climbed the ranks in a career that included leadership positions in Panama, Honduras, and Mexico before becoming the head of Nespresso in 2024.<\/p>\n

The CEO job opened up after Laurent Freixe was ousted<\/a> over Labor Day weekend following investigation into an undisclosed romantic relationship with a direct subordinate. In a press release<\/a>, Nestl\u00e9 Chairman Paul Bulcke said Navratil stood out as the successor because of \u201chis impressive track record of achieving results in challenging environments\u201d over his 24-year stint at Nestl\u00e9.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For aspirational Gen Zers looking to emulate his success straight out of college, Navratil\u2019s mantra centers around being in a constant pursuit of learning new knowledge and skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn today\u2019s fast-paced world, staying curious and embracing new ideas is essential to staying ahead,\u201d he wrote on LinkedIn<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Nestl\u00e9 for life<\/p>\n

Nestl\u00e9 has been around for over 150 years, and like Navratil, its leaders have a track record of spending decades of their careers at the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example, now-former CEO Freixe, spent 38 years at the company before being named chief executive last year<\/a>. Alfonso Gonzalez Loeschen, the current CEO of Nespresso North America, has also spent 33 years at Nestl\u00e9, with his roots first sprouting as an intern in 1992.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually knocked on Nestl\u00e9\u2019s door for a job,\u201d Gonzalez Loeschen told Fortune late last year<\/a>. \u201cI was looking for a multinational company, because I couldn\u2019t imagine myself living and growing up in the same place. I really enjoy learning about different cultures and different ways of living. And I was lucky enough to get into Nestl\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzalez Loeschen pinpointed the fact that Nestl\u00e9 has allowed him to live internationally and experience new cultures\u2014as well as always being a new challenge to tackle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a very big food company, and I\u2019ve had these opportunities to manage different brands\u2014mostly in beverages and coffee,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been in coffee for a long time, but there\u2019s always been a new opportunity and a new challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Climbing the ranks as a company \u201clifer\u201d<\/p>\n

Nestl\u00e9 isn\u2019t alone in cultivating an environment of its leaders starting from the bottom and rising to the top; many Fortune 500<\/a> CEOs have had similar experiences being committed to their company.<\/p>\n

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon<\/a> started his career unloading trucks at the warehouse making $6.50 an hour at age 17. Three decades later, in 2014, he was named CEO. But, he stresses there are no shortcuts up the ladder\u2014and each ring must be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t take your current job for granted,\u201d McMillon told Stratechery<\/a> last year. \u201cThe next job doesn\u2019t come if you don\u2019t do the one you\u2019ve got well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, Mary Barra<\/a> became chief executive at General Motors the same year at McMillion after starting at the automobile company in 1980 as a co-op student on the Pontiac assembly line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just got to do the right thing and move forward. That\u2019s something I learned very early in my tenure as CEO going through the ignition switch crisis,\u201d she told Fortune at the 2024 Most Powerful Women Summit.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The battle for the corner office may be more competitive than ever before\u2014with promotions today seeming few and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[126],"tags":[3019,3020,3021,980,981,199,3022,3023],"class_list":["post-3164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nestle","tag-building-your-career","tag-career-advice","tag-career-success","tag-careers","tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","tag-nestle","tag-succession","tag-view-from-the-c-suite"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}