Nestlé and Nestlé Canada announces several executive changes
Changes are coming at the top of Nestlé Canada after the global food and processing giant posted strong quarterly earnings last month for this year.
Earlier, Nestlé’s Board of Directors appointed Jeff Hamilton, business head of Purina PetCare Zone Europe, to the position of chief executive officer Zone Americas (AMS) and member of the Group Executive Board. His appointment will be effective at the start of July of this year.
Steve Presley, executive vice-president and CEO Zone AMS, retired from the company.
Laurent Freixe, CEO Nestlé S.A., wrote that, "we are very grateful to Steve for his many years of dedicated service to our company and extend our best wishes to him for his future endeavors. We are excited to announce that Jeff will become the new CEO of Zone Americas. Jeff has consistently demonstrated exceptional performance and a remarkable ability to inspire and motivate his teams. We look forward to working with Jeff to drive our growth strategy in Zone AMS."
READ: Nestlé releases results for first quarter of this year
In Canada, Paul De Larzac, business executive officer, (BEO), Ice Cream, is now taking on a new role as vice-president, regional manager, for North America while Mark Cecchetto, BEO, Confectionery, will step into De Larzac’s former role. Also taking on a new role is Greg Coles, chief customer officer, who will become BEO, Confectionery, while Rob Wilson is stepping into the role of chief customer officer with Nestlé Canada.
Nestle's performance in the first quarter of 2025 had the company reporting modest organic sales growth of 2.8%, driven by a combination of real internal growth and strategic pricing.
“Growth was broad-based across markets and categories, with improving market share trends across many businesses, particularly our billionaire brands,” said Freixe upon the release of the earnings results in late April. “We have made further progress in delivering our strategy. Our ‘Fuel for Growth’ cost savings program is on track, providing the resources to help accelerate performance. In the quarter, we invested to strengthen our core business, achieved good consumer traction in the roll-out of our ‘big bet’ innovations such as Nescafé Espresso Concentrate, and saw some encouraging early improvements in our largest underperforming business cells. We are continuing to make changes throughout the organization to increase alignment and focus, with steps to harmonize our structure in Zone Europe and enhance our capabilities in R&D.”
