Peter Brabeck-Letmathe

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe is an Austrian businessman who spent his career at the food company Nestlé. Born in Villach in 1944, he studied economics in Vienna and joined Nestlé in 1968 as a salesman in Austria. He then worked in Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela before moving to the company's headquarters in Vevey in 1987, where he took charge of the culinary products division and, from 1992, a strategic business group covering food, chocolate, ice cream and pet food, together with global marketing and communications. In that role he developed Nestlé's branding policy, a strict hierarchy of global, regional and local brands. He became chief executive in 1997 and held the post until 2008, and he chaired the board from 2005 to 2017. He later chaired the Formula One Group and was briefly interim chairman of the World Economic Forum in 2025. His remarks about water as a foodstuff drew public controversy, and he later said he regards water for drinking and basic hygiene as a human right.