New CEO of Nestlé strengthens health group''s ambition

Nestle, the world''s largest manufacturer of food products in the world, will have a new Chief Executive Officer from January 2017: Ulf Mark Schneider, who ran the Frenesius Group, specialized in medical techniques.
Schneider will succeed Paul Bulcke, which in turn should be appointed Chairman of the Board of directors from 6 April 2017, if confirmed by the shareholders.
The choice of the new Chief Executive from outside the company, surprised in part. On the other hand, there were good internal options, as the Vice President for the Americas, the Frenchman Laurent Freixe. Another, however, Schneider, who comes from one of the leading global companies in the area of health, signals the ambition of the Swiss group in this segment.
In announcing the new CEO, the Board of Directors reaffirmed the long-term orientation to make Nestle a world company foreground in nutrition, health and well-being.
With Bulcke, experienced in the area of consumer products, and now with Schneider, been linked to health industry, Nestlé may accelerate that strategy.
German and American citizen, of 50-year-old Ulf Mark Schneider leaves the Frenesius, company with revenues of € 28 billion, to command a group whose recipe is three times higher, around 89 billion Swiss francs in 2015.
He will begin work at Nestlé in September, for a period of introduction in the group. Until he assumed in January 2017, there will be an integration with Nestle Health Science and Nestlé Skin Health. These two areas must report directly to the future CEO.
Peter Brabeck, after 50 years in Nestle, will reach the age limit in April 2017 and is retiring, leaving the Presidency of the Board of Directors for Bulcke. For Brabeck, Nestlé will have a steering team well prepared to deal with "a more and more difficult external environment and conduct performances of both near-term long".
The future CEO, in turn, declared himself "impatient" to start working on a company whose customers "are more and more for their health and their well-being".
When choosing Schneider, Nestlé has rejected, in addition to two other internal candidates Freixe, according to Bloomberg: Chris Johnson (drive cost efficiency program) and Wan Ling Martello (the commands of the regions of Asia, Oceania and Africa). The last time that Nestlé chose a CEO from outside the Group was in 1922.