Nestle can’t risk playing it safe

IT IS the stuff of boardroom nightmares.

Nestle fired CEO Laurent Freixe on Monday (Sep 1) after an internal probe revealed an undisclosed romantic relationship with a direct subordinate. After nearly four decades at Nestle, he lasted only a year in the top job.

This is not how it was supposed to go: Freixe was intended to be a return to the old Nestle. His predecessor, Mark Schneider, had ruffled feathers at the insular and conservative consumer giant with his direct leadership style. Freixe told the Financial Times earlier this year that Schneider – only the second outsider CEO in the company’s history – had “weakened the fabric of the organisation”.