The former CEO of Nestlé Laurent Freixe, ceased on Monday after discovering that hid a romantic relationship with a subordinate, gave it an important position in Nestlé Latin America, when he directed the firm’s businesses in that region, and later facilitated his departure from the company with compensation, Swiss media revealed on Wednesday.
According to the INSIDEpatz Insepse Financial Information website and the newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, who cited sources close to the case, the woman, whose identity has not been revealed, was promoted unexpectedly in September 2023 to the position of head of communication of Nestlé in the Latin American region.
Freixe, CEO of Nestlé for all of America since 2014 and exclusively from the Latin American region between 2022 and 2024, when there was a reorganization of the company’s divisions, took advantage of that second position for the woman to go out with compensation of the firm after 20 years in it.
Freixe’s extramarital relationship, which according to another Swiss medium, the newspaper Blick, is married to Publicis Agata Balceowska, was denounced last May and in a first internal investigation the case was “filed”, although it was reopened in July after several exclusive information from Inside Paradepatz.
Find out: Nestlé sank into the confusion after the dismissal of his CEO for an unleashed relationship
The French businessman, who had a year as a global CEO, was ceased with a fulminant effect and without compensation on Monday for violating the company’s code of behavior, which appointed as his immediate successor to Philipp Navrathil.
Freixe had arrived a year ago at the Nestlé direction after seven years in the position of Mark Schneider, who according to the observers resigned from results below expectations.
That relay was interpreted as a return of the Vavey giant to his “origins”, since Freixe had more than 40 years of experience within the company in contrast to Schneider, who had been the first executive in almost a century appointed at the head of the company without having worked in it previously.
With EFE information
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