Nestlé's new CEO paired 16,000 job cuts with a marketing raise; shares jumped 9%

When Philipp Navratil became Nestlé's CEO in September 2025, the world's biggest food company had just burned through two chief executives in a year. Navratil was no outside hire: a 25-year Nestlé lifer and former brand auditor who ran the Honduras country operation before leading Nespresso at headquarters. Writing in The Drum, Mark Ritson argues his no-nonsense start marks a break from predecessors who alternated between risk aversion and digital hype.

The moves came fast. 'We will be ruthless in assessing our talent,' Navratil told staff, stressing metrics, accountability and rewards for delivery — phrasing that startled some and delighted markets: within days the share price jumped 9%. Within three weeks he announced 16,000 job cuts, roughly 6% of the workforce, paired with a substantial increase in marketing investment. 'The world is changing, and Nestlé needs to change faster,' he told investors. Barclays called the debut a good one, noting the raised cost-savings target of almost £3bn as fuel for marketing.

The pairing is deliberate: marketing spend is climbing to almost 9% of revenue this year, up from 7% in 2022, with global CMO Aude Gandon directing about 70% of investment to digital and first-party data coverage reaching 400 million people. Inside the company, Navratil is dismantling the bureaucratic Swiss decision chains, using white-collar automation to free bandwidth, clarifying the marketing hierarchy, and insisting P&Ls be shared between marketing and finance. 'Accepting that we lose market share is no longer an option,' he told his new teams.

The deepest cut is portfolio surgery. Ritson notes 80% of Nestlé's profits come from fewer than 40 of its roughly 2,000 brands, led by 31 'billionaire brands' like Nespresso, KitKat and Purina — and expects at least 1,800 brands to be disappeared or divested, with even big names like Perrier and Gerber candidates for sale. Early proof points are modest but real: H1 organic growth of 4.3%, up from 2.9%, with the February 2026 update to show whether the trajectory holds.

Shares jumped 9% within days of his tone-setting; H1 organic growth ran at 4.3%; Barclays noted a cost-savings target raised to almost £3bn

Two CEO exits in a year left the company desperate for a decisive operator, and a 25-year insider could move without a learning curve or a loyalty test.

Decades as a manufacturing monolith left marketing 'flapping like decorative bunting': big brands ran on legacy and logistics rather than consumer intimacy.

The portfolio had grown a long, distracting tail — 80% of profits from fewer than 40 brands meant roughly 1,960 SKUs of complexity competing for management attention.

Navratil cut costs to fund growth rather than to dress up margins, raising the savings target so marketing investment could climb while headcount fell.

A turnaround can cut and invest at once: ruthless on talent and the brand tail, generous on the marketing that moves the star brands — starving the goose that lays the golden KitKat is the real risk.

The turnaround was weeks old when Ritson wrote: the 16,000 job cuts announced, marketing spending heading for almost 9% of revenue, and a brand purge expected to run through early 2026. Barclays endorsed the debut and H1 organic growth of 4.3% offered momentum, but Ritson framed the real test as execution — whether a century-old giant can be retrofitted for agility without breaking its bones — with the February 2026 update as the next checkpoint.