Peter Brabeck-Letmathe

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From Nestlé ice cream salesman to company CEO.

© Fabrice Coffrini—AFP/Getty Images

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe (born November 13, 1944, Villach, Austria) is an Austrian business executive who served as CEO (1997–2008) of Nestlé SA, one of the world’s largest food companies in the early 21st century.

Brabeck-Letmathe was educated in economics at the University of World Trade in Vienna.

In 1968 he joined the Austrian arm of the Switzerland-based Nestlé company through the Findus frozen foods division, where he excelled first as an ice-cream salesman and then as a new-product promoter.

His adventurous spirit gave him entry into Nestlé’s South American operations in the 1970s and ’80s, where he rose through the ranks to upper-management positions in Chile (1970–80), Ecuador (1981–83), and Venezuela (1983–87). One of the challenges he faced in Chile was the effort to forestall government plans to nationalize milk production, which would have undercut the company’s own milk products.

In 1987 he was drawn back to Nestlé’s headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland, to become vice president of the division of culinary products.

In 1992 he became the company’s executive vice president, with global responsibilities for marketing strategies. In this capacity, he reorganized Nestlé branding under six different headings, imposing a hierarchy that reached down to the local level.

In 1997 he was elected to the company’s board of directors and immediately was appointed chief executive officer. Less than four years later he was elected vice-chairman of the board.

As Nestlé CEO, Brabeck-Letmathe’s job was to make an already healthy company run even better. Despite a fall in global food prices in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, he managed to cut manufacturing costs significantly, largely by concentrating his efforts on fine-tuning the business rather than on downsizing.

During 2001–02 he orchestrated the acquisition of Ralston Purina, a pet-food company. His handiwork also resulted in Nestlé’s foray into bottled water as well as its abandonment of well-known brands such as Findus frozen foods and Hills Brothers coffee.

In 2005 Brabeck-Letmathe was appointed chair of the company’s board of directors, a position he retained after stepping down as chief executive in 2008. After reaching Nestlé’s mandatory retirement age of 72, he retired from the board in 2017.

In 2012, Brabeck-Letmathe became chair of Formula One Group, the company that manages the business side of Formula One racing, just as it was preparing for a possible initial public offering (IPO). Brabeck-Letmathe was responsible for improving corporate governance alongside longtime CEO Bernie Ecclestone. When Liberty Media acquired Formula One in 2017, Brabeck-Letmathe stepped down as chair but remained briefly on the board as a nonexecutive director to help with the leadership transition.

In April 2025 Brabeck-Letmathe was named interim chair of the World Economic Forum after the sudden retirement of founder Klaus Schwab. The leadership change followed the launch of an independent investigation into allegations that Schwab and his wife had mixed their personal affairs with Forum resources.

The claims, outlined in an anonymous whistleblower letter, were sent to the Forum’s board. Based in Geneva, the Forum hosts an annual gathering of global leaders and public figures in Davos, Switzerland.