Chairman and CEO of Nestle, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, gestures during the annual shareholders meeting of the Swiss based giant food company in Lausanne.
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How will such change go down in an organization that values tradition? "We don't have a choice," says Weller, Nestle's U.S. head. Consumer taste is so fickle, and the businesses Nestle is in are consolidating so fast that "we can't get to the next level without changing." Still, to get everyone to buy into the idea, Brabeck characteristically has set up a working group of national managers, including Weller, to figure out how to make the changes work in practice. That's another lesson the mountains taught him. "You learn very early on that you're better off working in a team," Brabeck says. "It's how you'll survive. There's nothing worse than having a weak team on the mountain." That, and unforeseen bad weather.