Name: Nespresso North America's CEO 'actually knocked on Nestlé's door' to get his first job
Uploaded: 2024-11-27
Duration: 5 min 36 s
Description: Nespresso North America CEO Alfonso Gonzalez Loeschen credits the company's success to being a 'people-first organization.'

Nespresso North America CEO Alfonso Gonzalez Loeschen credits the company's success to being a "people-first organization." 

Nespresso North America's CEO "actually knocked on Nestlé's door" to get his first job

Nespresso North America CEO Alfonso Gonzalez Loeschen.

Features

Nespresso North America's CEO began his journey in the company as an intern 32 years ago.

Nespresso North America's CEO says the company's success is due to being a "people-first organization." 

I drink too much coffee. You could say I drink about 5 to 6 coffee cups per day, two or three in the morning. And then throughout the day, depending on the day, I have a couple of other drinks and espresso and nice coffee beverage. But it's really something I look forward to every day. My very favorite form of coffee I would say is a double espresso, a dash of milk, almost like a macchiato and with just a hint of sugar or honey. Hello. My name is Alfonso Gonzalez. I am CEO for an espresso North America and this is an espresso secret to success. I'm Mexican and American origin. My dad's from Mexico. My mom's from Chicago actually. And I grew up uh and I studied in Mexico City. I majored in uh in marketing. I went into a program in Nestle that was a sort of a training program was for marketing and sales. And my first job was basically as a trainee. It was a fantastic program because the first six months they took us to the you were shadowing people across the company. So whether it was finance, whether it was operations, the warehouse uh sales, et cetera. So we did a, I did a little bit of shopping for the first six months. And then after that, my first job was going to one of the regions in Mexico to be a salesman. So I did that for about a year and a half and then went back and my first job was as a assistant marketing manager. So we started out in Mexico, uh put my hand up and said, I, I want an international career. I wanna get out there were not a lot of Mexican experts at that time. So I was one of the first and I got an opportunity to go to Argentina. So went to Argentina to a project there for about a year. Then from there, I moved to Switzerland uh to our head offices to what is our copy Strategic Business Unit. Spent three years there, went back to Mexico for about seven years in very different positions. Then I had the opportunity for the first time to go to North America. So went to the US to, to our nestle offices, worked there for about five years and then had the opportunity to lead the nestle business in Puerto Rico. So, well that, that was my first general management uh job was there for about three years. And that's when I got the opportunity to join Espresso. So I joined Espresso uh in Switzerland at headquarters uh as a global CMO and four years ago, I came to North America to lead an espresso North American business, which is the US uh Canada and Mexico. When you're a young marketer, usually you start as a, as an assistant manager, then you can become a brand manager, then you manage a full business, maybe you manage a division. So as, as you're progressing, you're aiming to go to hopefully reach a CEO position. What learned is the traditional path that you expect is never the one that you get. There's lateral movement. Sometimes there's a step back, step two steps forward. The first priority is to get to know the business and get to know the people. I do believe that what makes a business successful is the people and I believe in a people first organization. But as well, whenever I get into a new job, no, there's a book, I think that's the 1st 100 days that I once read a long, long time ago. There's a proof to that. It's like really immersing yourself, rolling your sweets up in the 1st 100 days. Getting to know the business deep down, getting to know the people is what brings your credibility in order to then be able to lead and to establish a vision and to inspire your teams and to get hold of your teams. The second thing I would say is you need to surround yourself with the best people and once you surround with, with yourself with the best people. It's all about uh giving clear guidance. It's all about empowering them, trusting them and then things, things play out and success comes. I would say that our focus on being a customer centric brand and organization in a of first organization really is the secret of success. It's really always bringing it back to a consumer because you can get lost. Right at the end of the day when you're leading a business, sometimes you can end up speaking to yourself. So really always taking a step back and saying, why is this relevant to your consumer? I think that in our relentless approach to being a consumer center organization is at the heart of the success together with being a direct to consumer model, our direct to consumer model allows us to have a closer relationship with our consumers. I meet with every single new employee at a certain point in time during their first, depending on when they go in. But there's an average during the first three months, I have an opportunity to sit down with the new employees and and just have a more intimate coffee chat to see how they're doing. If, if they fill any questions that they have, get any advice, I take so much out of, of those chats. So we do this on a monthly basis and it's just a way to stay closer to people. This is one of my favorite moments because you get to hear what's on people's minds, what's bothering them, what, what they're curious about. But as well, you get to get you, you get a lot of suggestions or new ideas from them and you get to know them on a more personal basis because it's, uh, you're talking 8, 10 people. So there's more environment. So I'm gonna be your barista for a minute. I'll do a very simple beverage. I'll do a latte. So to do a latte, uh one of the best things to do a latte is you take one of our double espressos, just pop it in here. And then what we have here is for milk. We have a milk jug. So basically, what our machine will do is it will detect the milk jug. Once you press it here, we have a couple of buttons here. So basically you can choose what the frothing. You want a lot of frost, a little frost. So uh once the milk is done, what I'll do is I'll pour it in and then we'll have a very quick look. So this is what I'll usually have in the morning. I actually have a cist machine at home and we have plenty of this at the office. So now you have a really nice frosted milk here. So what I'll do pour here and you will just position your cup and we'll just brew our double espresso. And what you'll see is you'll get this beautiful layers just as you get in a coffee shop. My advice is if you like your coffee sweetened, I would use a little bit of sugar that whatever type of sugar you want. Uh Then the milk as well. You can choose the different types of milk options that you can have. But I will put uh for your sweetener, I will put the sweetener in before. So you put your sugar or your honey and then you pour everything behind and that's it. Voila.