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

Fortune

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

Transcript

00:00I drink too much coffee you could say. I drink about five to six coffee cups per day,

00:05two or three in the morning, and then throughout the day, depending on the day, I'll have a couple

00:09of other drinks, an espresso or an iced coffee beverage, but it's really something I look

00:12forward to every day. My very favorite form of coffee I would say is a double espresso,

00:19a dash of milk, almost like a macchiato, and with just a hint of sugar or of honey.

00:24Hello, my name is Alfonso Gonzalez. I'm CEO for Nespresso North America, and this is Nespresso

00:29Secrets to Success. I'm Mexican of American origin. My dad's from Mexico. My mom's from

00:34Chicago actually, and I grew up and I studied in Mexico City. I majored in marketing. I went

00:40into a program in Nestle that was a sort of a training program. It was for marketing and sales,

00:45and my first job was basically as a trainee. It was a fantastic program because the first six

00:49months they took us through, you were shadowing people across the company. So whether it was

00:54finance, whether it was operations in the warehouse, sales, et cetera. So I did a little

00:59bit of shadowing for the first six months, and then after that, my first job was going to one

01:03of the regions in Mexico to be a salesman. So I did that for about a year and a half,

01:07and then went back, and my first job was as an assistant marketing manager.

01:11So I started out in Mexico, put my hand up and said, I want an international career. I want to

01:17get out. There were not a lot of Mexican expats at that time, so I was one of the first, and I

01:21got an opportunity to go to Argentina. So went to Argentina to a project there for about a year.

01:25Then from there, I moved to Switzerland to our head offices, to what is our coffee strategic

01:30business unit. Spent three years there. Went back to Mexico for about seven years in very

01:34different positions. Then I had the opportunity for our first time to go to North America. So

01:39went to the US to our Nestle offices. Worked there for about five years, and then had the

01:43opportunity to lead the Nestle business in Puerto Rico. So that was my first general management

01:48job. Was there for about three years, and that's when I got the opportunity to join Espresso. So I

01:53joined Espresso in Switzerland, our headquarters, as a global CMO. And four years ago, I came to

02:01North America to lead an Espresso North American business, which is the US, Canada, and Mexico.

02:06When you're a young marketer, usually you start as an assistant manager. Then you can become a

02:11brand manager. Then you manage a full business. Maybe you manage a division. So as you're

02:15progressing, you're aiming to hopefully reach a CEO position. What I've learned is the

02:21traditional path that you expect is never the one that you get. There's lateral movements. Sometimes

02:25there's a step back to take two steps forward. The first priority is get to know the business

02:29and get to know the people. I do believe that what makes a business successful is the people,

02:33and I believe in a people-first organization. But as well, whenever I get into a new job,

02:38there's a book I think that's the first 100 days that I once read a long, long time ago.

02:42There's a truth to that. It's like really immersing yourself, rolling your sleeves up

02:45in the first 100 days, getting to know the business deep down, getting to know the people

02:50is what brings you credibility in order to then be able to lead and to establish a vision and to

02:55inspire your teams and to get ahold of your teams. The second thing I would say is you need to

02:59surround yourself with the best people. And once you surround yourself with the best people,

03:03it's all about giving clear guidance. It's all about empowering them, trusting them, and then

03:09things play out and success comes. I would say that our focus on being a customer-centric brand

03:14and organization and a people-first organization really is the secret to success. It's really

03:21always bringing it back to a consumer because you can get lost, right? At the end of the day,

03:24when you're leading a business, sometimes you can end up speaking to yourself. So really always

03:28taking a step back and saying, why is this relevant to your consumer? I think that in our

03:32relentless approach to being a customer-centric organization is at the heart of the success.

03:37Together with being a direct-to-consumer model, our direct-to-consumer model allows us to have

03:42a closer relationship with our consumers. I meet with every single new employee at a certain point

03:47in time during their first, depending on when they go in, but there's an average during their

03:51first three months, I have an opportunity to sit down with the new employees and just have a more

03:56intimate coffee chat to see how they're doing, if they filled any questions that they have,

04:00get any advice. I take so much out of those chats. So we do this on a monthly basis and it's just a

04:06way to stay closer to people. This is one of my favorite moments because you get to hear what's

04:10on people's minds, what's bothering them, what they're curious about, but as well, you get a lot

04:17of suggestions or new ideas from them and you get to know them on a more personal basis because

04:22you're talking to 8, 10 people, so there's more environment.

04:26So I want to be your barista for a minute. I'll do a very simple beverage. I'll do a latte. So

04:31to do a latte, one of the best things to do a latte is you take one of our double espressos,

04:36just pop it in here. And then what we have here is our milk. We have a milk jug. So basically what

04:42our machine will do is it will detect the milk jug once you press it here. We have a couple of

04:46buttons here, so basically you can choose what's the frothing. You want a lot of froth, a little

04:51froth. So once the milk is done, what I'll do is I'll pour it in and then we'll have a very quick

04:56latte. So this is what I'll usually have in the morning. I actually have a creatista machine at

05:00home and we have plenty of this at the office. So now you have a really nice frothed milk here.

05:06So what I'll do is I'll pour it here and you'll just position your cup and we'll just brew our

05:11double espresso. And what you'll see is you'll get these beautiful layers just as you get

05:16in a coffee shop. My advice is if you like your coffee sweetened, I would use a little bit of

05:21sugar, whatever type of sugar you want. Then the milk as well. You can choose the different types

05:26of milk options that you can have. But for your sweetener, I would put the sweetener in

05:30before. So you put your sugar or your honey and then you pour everything behind and that's it.

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