Nestlé creates new Business Excellence arm and redefines its European zone to ‘take full benefit’ of its scale
Nestlé has created a new Business Excellence arm and integrated zones Asia, Oceania and Middle East into zone Europe as it looks to better leverage its scale and keep up with developing market trends.
The FMCG giant's Business Excellence will integrate Nestlé's corporate support functions Globe and Nestlé Business Services as well as its corporate initiative Nestlé Continuous Excellence.
By bringing these different functions together under one responsibility, the company aims to better leverage its scale and skills, and serve its markets and businesses more effectively and cost efficiently.
Chris Johnson, currently executive vice president in charge of zone Americas, will assume responsibility as executive vice president of the newly created division, while Laurent Freixe will succeed Johnson as executive vice president in charge of zone Americas.
The company has also decided to integrate the Maghreb, the Middle East, the North East Africa region, Turkey and Israel into zone Europe, and will rename it EMENA (Europe, Middle East and North Africa), as it looks to increase its reach within the areas.
Luis Cantarell will take on the responsibility for the new EMENA zone, and will remain on the board of Nestlé Health Science which, as President and CEO, he started and set up.
Greg Behar will become chief executive of Nestlé Health Science and report directly to the Nestlé Health Science board.
Cantarell will hand over his other responsibility for Nestlé Nutrition to Heiko Schipper, currently global business head of Infant Nutrition, who will be appointed deputy executive vice president in charge of Nestlé Nutrition and member of the executive board from 1 October.
Paul Bulcke, Nestlé chief executive commented: "While always privileging a decentralised structure to stay close to the local consumer and keep agility in execution, we are increasing our efforts to better leverage our scale.
“We are looking into how our company is organised and operates to keep an optimal balance between category and geographic focus. By taking these steps, we are building our company for continued growth and performance."
The new structure will be effective as of 1 October and will be fully operational by 1 January 2015.