Climber scales the health peak
In the dining room at Claridges, Peter Brabeck asks for a cup of Nescafé to wash down his hearty meal at the posh London hotel.
The waitress looks perplexed, then embarrassed. After a moment's mutual incomprehension, the chief executive of Nestlé, the world's biggest foods group and maker of the (nearly) ubiquitous instant coffee brand, stands down and opts for a cigar at the bar instead.
For Mr Brabeck, still the inveterate marketing man in spite of nine years at the top (since 2005, he has been chairman, too), such episodes are familiar.
Promoting Nestlé's products against the incursions of big retailers' "private label" brands, and pre-empting fickle consumers' tastes have been just two of his challenges. Like other branded food groups such as Unilever and Danone, Nestlé also has to contend with a seismic shift in its industry as power has moved from manufacturers to global store chains such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco.
The swing has coincided with declining or stable populations and slowing growth in mature markets as convenience foods have lost their novelty. More recently, rising energy prices have raised the hurdle for an industry already vulnerable to see-sawing natural commodities, such as cocoa or coffee beans.
Mr Brabeck, a silver-haired 61-year-old Austrian who has spent his entire career with Nestlé, shows no sign of strain. A keen pilot, climber and Harley-Davidson fan, he retains a charm that belies Nestlé's reputation for stiffness and bureaucracy.
He has also developed a reputation for straight talking, such as in last year's spat with Italy's farm minister over allegedly contaminated baby milk.
"I'm used to [facing adversity], whether as a climber or a manager," he says. "Headwinds don't knock me over. It's just part of one's responsibility to society to say what you think, no matter which way the wind is blowing."
In his first years since taking over from Helmut Maucher, Nestlé's legendary chief executive for 16 years until 1997, continuity was Mr?Brabeck's main theme.
Big takeovers
