Alumni Highlight: Nestlé Europe Director

Laurent Freixe, graduated from EDHEC in 1985, on his career at Nestlé Group

An open-hearted interview with Laurent Freixe who recently took the reins of the Zone Europe at the Nestlé Group and is now a member of the Group Executive Committee. This 12-person body comprises eight different nationalities of which two-thirds of the members have spent their entire career inside the company, guaranteeing a strong organizational culture emphasizing the principal values of strategic clarity and the anticipation of future developments.

You have just assumed responsibility for Nestlé's European operations. Can you tell us about your new position?

Laurent Freixe: ' I am indeed the Zone Director for Europe, an area which extends from Ireland to Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus. We manage 28 billion Swiss Francs of sales turnover (18.16 billion euros), 80,000 people and 150 plants. As the head of this Zone for Nestlé, my job is to develop teams, define priorities and energise internal and external growth projects and strategies, manage portfolios of product categories...

This Zone includes many emerging countries, within and outside the European Union, such as Hungary, Russia and Ukraine. Our objective is to realise our full potential in these countries, which is much higher than average. My role is therefore to build and set up strategies which will enable us to grow along with these countries through tailor-made strategies accompanied by an active investment policy for new plants and the acquisition of existing companies.

You are already very familiar with the French, Hungarian and Spanish markets...

L.F.: ' Yes, but I still have much to learn about some of the others so that I can take decisions concerning overall strategies and to strike a balance. You also became member of the Group Executive Committee. How has the economic crisis affected Nestlé?

L.F.: ' It has not affected us. Our last published quarterly results show an improvement on past figures and we are continuing to follow our charted trajectory. The share price has held better than the  industry average. This performance is undoubtedly related to our specific position in the industry, focused on health and wellbeing, and the relative weight of emerging countries in our turnover. What

investors value is the consistency of our results, the clear-sightedness of our strategy, and the management continuity. When times get tough, they turn to our well-projected trajectory and clarity. The Nestlé Model makes our shares a mainstay of defensive investing.

We certainly expect a difficult economic climate, but we believe that our results depend more on our strategies and actions, and that we have sufficient leeway to continue in the years to come to deliver the Nestlé model with profitable growth.

How would you describe this model?

L.F.: ' The Nestlé model consists in generating sustainable and profitable growth and developing our leadership, while guaranteeing the most efficient management of our capital. Four points seem essential to me. Our global presence and our multiculturalism, our perpetual efforts to innovate, our long-term management which gives us very strong visibility and the quality of our Human Resources,

which forges our identity.

Can you tell us about the multiculturalism of Nestlé...

L.F.: ' It is easy to see. We are present in all the countries of the world, and have been in China since the end of the 19th century. About sixty different nationalities can be found at the international head office. In the Executive Committee, which comprises only twelve people, eight nationalities are represented. Diversity is essential due to our time global presence and to the strongly local and cultural nature of our products.

You mentioned highly innovative products...

L.F.: ' Absolutely. Innovation is fundamental. Those who do not move forward move back. The desire to always go one step further must be omnipresent, and we are always moving. This vision is central to product development, but it also must exist in management. The Business Planning approach at Nestlé involves constant innovation and renovation.

The famous long-term management...

L.F. : ' Yes. One of Nestlé's strong points is the ability to anticipate, foresee and plan for the long term and strike a balance with the short term. What makes us so visible is our sliding longterm plan with three- and ten-year deadlines. Ten years, it's where we want to go. How we want to transform the company. Three years is the required planning horizon for the management of our investments and our key business initiatives.

Last but not least there is short-term planning, which enables us to manage the present in order to deliver results. But we never sacrifice the long term for the short term. Our process requires thinking and planning for the future, because our role as industry leader is to always be ahead of the game - an imperative fundamental to our culture.

How do you create this culture and how do you bring Nestlé's human resources on board?

L.F.: ' We have rigorous recruitment and training policies, and an efficient communication of our values and leadership principles. The Management walks the talk and is in permanent contact with young talents. Our International Training Programs contribute as well to fostering our values.

Recruitment is primarily carried out at the local level because of our decentralized nature. We prefer to recruit beginners - with exceptions for some more experienced people - for whom we open up long-term prospects. We favour applicants with a vision for the future and real leadership potential. We assess applicants using our own competences model.

To help employees reach their potential and ensure that the best remain at Nestlé, we make every effort to increase their capabilities using a competence development model designed in-house which strongly emphasises leadership culture.

As a result of these recruitment and training policies, people remain committed to Nestlé in the long term. I am living proof of this, as are two thirds of the leaders who comprise the Executive Committee.

With regards to tools and procedures, our managers have powerful information systems which, in our decentralized set up, enable them to act as entrepreneurs on the market instead of implementers. Nestlé values are perpetually disseminated using internal communication tools, which also inform employees about objective and strategy.

Nestlé recruitment and training procedures reflects similarities with the Talent Identification & Career Development Program set up in the new design in the Master in Management program. Have you taken note of this new design, and if so what do you think about it?

L.F.: ' What I do know seems quite attractive: The decision to teach exclusively in English from the second year onwards seems completely fundamental, because that will create perfectly fluid students and executives, an essential quality in our increasingly global world.

The innovate aspects of the TI&CD also seem very relevant to me. It makes sense for a business school such as the EDHEC to develop talents by using the same grids as the world's largest companies.

As all that will take place on a new, particularly attractive campus, I will be increasingly proud to serve as a flag-bearer for EDHEC. And for Nestlé, of course!