Nestlé Philippines appoints new chairman/CEO

MANILA, Philippines - Nestlé Philippines, Inc. (NPI) announces the appointment of Jacques Reber as its chairman and CEO effective Aug. 1, 2015.

Reber, who is from Switzerland, succeeds Suresh Narayanan, now managing director of Nestlé India Ltd. 

Before his Philippine appointment, Reber was market head of Nestlé Portugal.

This year marks Reber’s 25th year with Nestlé.  After completing a degree in Business Administration from the University of Geneva where he majored in Management and Marketing, and fresh from a one-year stint as trainee in an audit firm, he joined the Nestlé S.A. headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland as international auditor in the food business in 1990.

Three years later, he was transferred to France, where he established the audit department of Nestlé Waters in Paris.  In 1994, he was promoted to Controller for South Europe and Asia, and in 1997, was asked to take on mergers and acquisitions for Zone AOA (Asia, Oceania and Africa).

In 1999, Reber assumed the post of Country Business Manager of Nestlé Waters in Portugal, a position he held until 2003.  He transferred to Paris in 2004, as Carrefour key account director of Nestlé Waters France, his first foray into sales.   In 2005, he took on his first Asian assignment, as Country Business Manager of Nestlé Waters in Japan.

He returned to Switzerland in 2007, where he worked for Nestlé’s Zone EMENA (Europe, Middle East and North Africa) on various projects including nutrition, health and wellness, international key accounts and business development.  In March 2009, he was appointed managing director of Nestlé Romania, a position he held up to December 2012. The following year, he became market head of Nestlé Portugal S.A. until his transfer to the Philippines in August 2015.

“It is a great honor and privilege to be assigned here in the Philippines, a country regarded so highly by Nestlé,” Reber said. “My family and I look forward to getting to know the country and the Filipino people, who are known for being so warm and so full of life.”