Nestlé, the global food giant behind Nespresso, has been thrown into crisis after its CEO Laurent Freixe was sensationally fired following a sex scandal that has rattled the company’s boardrooms and investors alike.

Freixe, 63, a Nestlé veteran once seen as the safe pair of hands to restore the group’s famously “boring predictability,” was exposed after a senior marketing executive — described as his mistress — caught him in a Zurich hotel with another subordinate. Furious, she filed a complaint through the company’s anonymous “speak up” hotline, triggering an internal probe with external lawyers. Both women are now gone from the company.

The scandal has not only torpedoed Freixe’s career but also sparked questions over Nestlé’s judgment. Shares slumped 3.6% on the news, with analysts calling the affair “unprecedented turmoil” for a company that prides itself on careful succession planning and buttoned-down culture.

In a lightning-fast reshuffle, Nestlé appointed Nespresso boss Philipp Navratil as the new CEO (seen below).

Navratil, who has spent more than 20 years at the company and was only elevated to run Nespresso in July 2024, is being tasked with steadying the ship. The company says he will “fully embrace the strategic direction” — including ramping up ad spending and axing underperforming units — policies initiated by his disgraced predecessor.

The speed of the decision has raised eyebrows on Wall Street. Jefferies analysts asked why Nestlé rushed to install a permanent internal successor instead of casting a wider net for talent. Competitors, meanwhile, are watching with a mix of shock and schadenfreude. “The big mistake he made was getting caught,” one senior Swiss coffee machine executive told ChannelNews at IFA 2025 in Berlin, where the scandal has been the industry’s biggest talking point.

Bloomberg described the debacle as “a two-finger salute” to Nestlé’s corporate values, while RBC analysts admitted they were stunned: “We thought of him as a Nestlé lifer who would restore the company’s reputation of slightly boring predictability. How wrong we were.”

Nestlé has confirmed Freixe will not receive a payout. His fall from grace — from lifer to liability — comes just as Nestlé prepares for a generational leadership handover, with a new chairman arriving next year.

For Navratil, the scandal hands him both the top job and the challenge of rebuilding investor trust. As one analyst put it: “This step should have happened a year earlier. Now it comes wrapped in scandal.”