# CEO Scandals: Nestlé, Secrecy, and Workplace Relationships

- **Episode:** [232](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/232.md) (2025-09-16)
- **Type:** news-roundup
- **Tags:** ceo scandals, nestlé, workplace relationships, secrecy
- **Time:** 0:02–11:16 (start 2s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/232?t=2](https://truthliesandwork.com/232?t=2)

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[0:02] Al Elliott: Coming up this week in work
[0:04] Leanne Elliott: Would you sack your CEO over a secret office romance? Well, Nestlé just did, and it's not the affair that caused the backlash, it was the secrecy. So when does a relationship become a trust issue, and what can business leaders learn from the fallout?
[0:19] Al Elliott: Also this week, it's been just over 1,000 days since ChatGPT was unleashed on the world. So is it killing jobs or transforming workplaces? Or quietly doing both while they're still debating how to use it
[0:30] Leanne Elliott: And in the workplace surgery, are we overvaluing experience and ignoring skills? One hiring manager says the best candidates keep getting overlooked and wants to know how to challenge a process that favours CVs over capability
[0:43] Al Elliott: This is Truth, Lies and Work
[0:45] Leanne Elliott: The award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist
[0:56] Al Elliott: And my name is Al and I'm a business owner
[0:58] Leanne Elliott: And together we help organisations build amazing workplace cultures
[1:01] Al Elliott: So let's get right into this after a very quick word from our beautiful, lovely sponsors
[1:40] Al Elliott: Nice. Okay, welcome back, welcome back. It is Leanne's favourite time of week
[1:52] Leanne Elliott: Which we haven't done for ages. It's been a, it's been a minute
[1:56] Al Elliott: It's been a minute. Uh, yeah, so it's probably been about 6 weeks since we've done a proper This Week in Work. So without further ado, even though there has been much ado, so, uh, what do we do now?
[2:05] Leanne Elliott: Cue the jingle
[2:05] Al Elliott: There we go, jingle being cued. Leanne, what have you seen on the interwebs this week?
[2:09] Leanne Elliott: Well, if there was one scandal from the summer that none of us avoided, it was the Coldplay Kiss Cam chaos. My goodness. Um, if you have been living under a rock and, and didn't hear about that, a tech CEO and his head of HR were caught mid-cuddle at a Coldplay concert, and then were swiftly out of a job and a couple of marriages, from what I hear. But while that story made headlines for the drama, what happened this week at Nestlé could have actually more serious implications for leadership and workplace culture in general. Al, have you heard about this, that Nestlé have just fired its global CEO?
[2:45] Al Elliott: No, I haven't. And Nestlé are famously devoid of any kind of scandal whatsoever. They're a very clean For those of you who are under the age of 40, back in the '70s and '80s, there was a big scandal about Nestlé, but not about their CEO. So what happened?
[2:59] Leanne Elliott: So I should have looked at how to pronounce this. Laurent Freixier. F-R-E-I-X-I-E-R. You're good at French
[3:07] Al Elliott: Laurent Freixier
[3:09] Leanne Elliott: Freixier?
[3:09] Al Elliott: I don't know. I'm just making that up
[3:10] Leanne Elliott: Laurent
[3:11] Al Elliott: Laurent
[3:12] Leanne Elliott: We're on first name basis. So yeah, he was sacked with immediate effect. Because of a relationship he had with his direct subordinate, which obviously created a clear conflict of interest. But apparently that's not why he was sacked, it was because of his failure to disclose it. Same time, Laurent throughout has denied the relationship. First investigation found nothing going wrong, then they had a second investigation led by outside counsel, and they The complaints were upheld
[3:44] Al Elliott: So hold on, just understand this. So this Laurent was having a little bit of an affair or something with someone as a subordinate
[3:53] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. Somebody complained through the whistleblowing process. Right
[3:56] Al Elliott: And then they were like internally, yeah, no worries. And then they got someone else to look at it externally and went, actually, yeah, no, there is a problem
[4:01] Leanne Elliott: Exactly. Exactly. But what confuses me when I was reading so many different reports about it, and what confuses me is that Laurent denies the relationship throughout
[4:11] Al Elliott: Right
[4:11] Leanne Elliott: So I don't know whether that's the type of relationship was, or I dunno, but he just denies it. It. Um, so yeah, he's been outed. Nestlé, no severance, no nothing. He has been in the top job for a year. Previous to that, he spent 40 years at Nestlé. Um, so apparently the employee involved wasn't on the executive board but reportedly, reportedly benefited professionally, first with a rapid promotion in Latin America and then with a move to the head office. Um, but apparently the official word from the board is it wasn't necessarily the relationship that they took issue with. It was a lack of disclosure
[4:47] Al Elliott: I did not have sexual relations with that person
[4:50] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, indeed. And in that, and not surprising in the wake of Andy Burnham as well that we saw at Coldplay concert, shares did take a hit. So Nestlé scrambled pretty quickly to, to get him out and name a replacement. Yeah, it's not the first time we've seen it. Obviously, we saw it with Andy Burnham. We've seen it from BP's Bernard Looney stepping down after admitting he'd—
[5:12] Al Elliott: Sorry, that's a great name. Bernard Looney
[5:15] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, after he hadn't been fully transparent about workplace relationships, plural. And then we also saw Steve Easterbrook at McDonald's fired, fined, and made to return his severance package after misleading the board about 3 internal relationships
[5:29] Al Elliott: And I bet his defence was, well, they were loving it
[5:34] Vanessa Judelman: Oh, sick
[5:36] Al Elliott: That's not gonna make it in, is it? Sorry, sorry. Yes, I'm actually trivialising something which is quite Right. But just before you go on, I'm, I'm sorry to interrupt you there with, with, um, obviously terrible, terrible stuff, but I'm watching The Morning Show. You, you, you suggested to me
[5:53] Leanne Elliott: Oh yeah. I love The Morning Show
[5:54] Al Elliott: And so now I can't look at anything without looking through the lens of The Morning Show. If you've seen it, then it's very similar to what we're just talking about here. Um, and so now like everything seems The Morning Show. I'm just imagining Steve Carell playing it out. Sorry, you were in the middle of something
[6:08] Leanne Elliott: Steve Carell. Such a good show
[6:12] Al Elliott: Yeah, but you said that as if As if he was also been involved in some of this. 'Cause you know, it's just a story, don't you? You know, it's TV, it's not real
[6:19] Leanne Elliott: It's not gonna happen. Allegedly. Allegedly
[6:21] Al Elliott: Well, you heard it here first
[6:22] Leanne Elliott: Anyway, Al, what do we think? As the man, as the man in the room, is this an issue? Is it, is it an imbalance of power that shouldn't be tolerated in organisations? Is it just around the secrecy? What does it say about leadership and how to hold leaders accountable in 2025?
[6:37] Al Elliott: Look, I, I don't know. I've never been the CEO of Nestlé. Um, I, I know that you didn't know what I did for the first half of my life, but it wasn't, it wasn't being CEO of Nestlé. I don't know. I mean, uh, if you have a relationship, then you're supposed to go and disclose it to HR, aren't you? Is that not what you're supposed to do? And would that not be the most sensible thing to do?
[6:58] Leanne Elliott: Mm-hmm
[6:58] Al Elliott: I don't see why you wouldn't do that. But then again, I don't know what the internal politics are because maybe if you do go and disclose it, then HR go, no problem at all. The door shuts and they start typing on your record. I don't know. I dunno how that works. Like my mother used to say to you, say to me, just never lie. If you get caught out, just go, yeah, yeah, it was me
[7:15] Leanne Elliott: Mm-hmm
[7:15] Al Elliott: It was me. George Washington. There's a whole story about George Washington. I think he said something like, father, I cannot lie. It was I who cut down the cherry tree. Now we are going back to that
[7:24] Leanne Elliott: Not the cherry tree
[7:26] Al Elliott: Fucking cherry tree. I mean, that cherry tree at that age, that would've been about 300 years old now. I think that cherry tree
[7:33] Vanessa Judelman: Wow
[7:33] Al Elliott: But he, but no, old Georgie, he said, no, I'm gonna cut it down. I think that the whole point is that surely you should take, you should tell the truth. I don't know the internal politics of whether you disclose it or not. I think this is probably a good time actually before we go back and we talk maybe more about the psychology of this to disclose to our listeners that we are in a relationship in the workplace. So if you didn't, if you hadn't heard that before, listener, then I think it's important you should know that just in case there's a secondary external audit of our organisation, the Podcast Towers
[8:04] Leanne Elliott: Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. To be fair, our relationship started before we went into business together though
[8:08] Al Elliott: That is true
[8:09] Leanne Elliott: That's different
[8:09] Al Elliott: That is true. But all of the employees here know about it
[8:12] Leanne Elliott: Yes, both of them do
[8:14] Al Elliott: Both of them do, which is us two. And even our dogs know about it and they're not really employed
[8:18] Vanessa Judelman: No
[8:19] Al Elliott: I see them as valued members of the team
[8:21] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. Obviously every organisation's gonna have its own policy. If you are a small business and you don't have a policy, I advise you to. We talked about this on the surgery actually before. I think somebody had some issues with personal relationships at work. It depends. I think, you know what, I think the thing is, it's one thing if you are a manager in a small business and you fall in love with your colleague or your teammate. I just think it's quite the other when you're the global CEO of a multi-billion dollar business and the only partner you can find just happens to be your subordinate who you can do some favors for. It's just, I think you have to hold yourself to a higher standard at that point in terms of, you know, it's a public company, isn't it? You've got shareholders and all sorts in terms of governance. And I just question why any CEO would put themselves into a point where they're in a relationship and having to disclose it. I just don't. And I'm quite romantic, but I just can't help but think there's a better way to go about it. Actually, this could be an absolute power struggle, and there's lots of ego in high-powered leadership positions. We know that in terms of personality, we know that in terms of behaviour, we know by the number of men who get caught out in high-powered positions because it goes to their head or somewhere else on their body. Um, so I just think that it's just so problematic because to everybody else it undermines the trust in the organisation in terms of how decisions are made. We call that, as psychologists, procedural justice, and it's a big aspect of employee engagement. If you don't have procedural justice, then You'll know anecdotally if you've worked in an environment that isn't fair and people are being treated differently, you're not there very, very long. And of course it has massive impacts on psychological safety, being able to speak up. The fact that this was through a whistleblower in the first investigation, found nothing, and then the second one— oh, it's so problematic. I just think if you're a senior leader, unless this is head over heels, this is the love of my life, I'm going to be with them forever, just don't
[10:21] Al Elliott: If the heart wants what the heart wants, and if the heart really wants someone who will work there and you're the global CEO, then why doesn't one of you step down? Now, this is problematic
[10:29] Leanne Elliott: Well, indeed, because who's stepping down?
[10:31] Al Elliott: Well, yes, exactly. The person who earns $20 million a year or the person who doesn't?
[10:35] Leanne Elliott: And if it is true love, then do it all above board. Go to HR, be very transparent about it, make sure that person doesn't report into you, or HR will handle it however it needs to be handled. And if it doesn't work out and you do break up, don't fall in love again with somebody else in the same company, because that's just going to undermine everything that you said Initially, you know?
[10:55] Al Elliott: Yeah, exactly. And Nestlé do have like thousands and thousands of employees, but still there are plenty more fish in the sea. Yeah
[11:02] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. Yeah. Plenty more Kit Kats in the break room
[11:04] Al Elliott: Is that Nestlé?
[11:05] Leanne Elliott: Very good
[11:06] Al Elliott: Very good
[11:07] Vanessa Judelman: Thank you
[11:07] Al Elliott: Yeah. So the key message here is the CEO of Nestlé, just take a break. That's about what you need to do
[11:14] Leanne Elliott: Very good