news release<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\nNestl\u00e9 said that Mr. Freixe\u2019s dismissal followed an investigation into a romantic relationship he had with a direct subordinate.<\/p>\n
The investigation was overseen by the company\u2019s chairman, Paul Bulcke, and lead independent director, Pablo Isla, and included outside counsel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a necessary decision,\u201d Mr. Bulcke said in a statement. \u201cNestl\u00e9\u2019s values and governance are strong foundations of our company. I thank Laurent for his years of service at Nestl\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Navratil, who replaces Mr. Freixe effective immediately, was previously senior vice president and head of the company\u2019s Coffee Strategic Business Unit, overseeing global strategy for the Nescaf\u00e9 and Starbucks brands. He began his career at Nestl\u00e9 as an internal auditor in 2001, and was named country manager for Nestl\u00e9 Honduras in 2009.<\/p>\n
In 2013, he took control of the company\u2019s coffee and beverage business in Mexico. Last year, he was named chief executive of Nestl\u00e9 Nespresso, and he joined Nestl\u00e9\u2019s executive board this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fully embrace the company\u2019s strategic direction, as well as the action plan in place to drive Nestl\u00e9\u2019s performance,\u201d Mr. Navratil said in a statement.<\/p>\n
When Mr. Freixe was named chief executive less than a year ago, Nestle\u2019s stock had dropped nearly 40 percent from its high in early 2022, as a new breed of weight-loss drugs began to shift eating habits across Europe and the United States. After spending nearly four decades at the company, he was tapped to replace the longtime chief executive Mark Schneider, who was one of only two Nestl\u00e9 chief executives hired from outside the company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nestl\u00e9, the Swiss multinational conglomerate and the world\u2019s largest food company, has dismissed its chief executive, Laurent Freixe,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[126],"tags":[29701,33306,33307,10791,199,2044,5861,33308],"class_list":{"0":"post-60080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nestle","8":"tag-appointments-and-executive-changes","9":"tag-freixe","10":"tag-laurent","11":"tag-navratil","12":"tag-nestle","13":"tag-nestle-sa","14":"tag-philipp","15":"tag-workplace-hazards-and-violations"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116520018539684266","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60080","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=60080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}