‘Chinay’ named CFO of Nestle

University of the Philippines-trained Wan Ling Martello, an American citizen of Filipino-Chinese descent, has been hired as executive vice president and chief finance officer by Nestle S.A., the world’s biggest food conglomerate.

Martello will assume her new job effective April 1, succeeding Canadian Jim Singh, who retired after 35 years with the Vevey, Switzerland food giant.

“I am confident that Wan Ling will blend well into the Nestlé culture and that her strong experience in finance and the food and beverage business, both from the industry and retail angle, will allow her to further enhance the Nestlé model combining top-line growth with continuous margin improvement and an improved return on invested capital,” said Nestle CEO Paul Bulcke in a press statement.

Martello — who is fluent in Mandarin and Tagalog, in addition to English — is expected to help Nestle’s expansion in emerging markets. The Swiss food company recently bought a Chinese candy maker and targets 45 per cent of total revenue from emerging markets by 2020 compared to the current share of 33 per cent.

Martello follows a series of appointments of senior female appointments at European consumer goods companies last year. Alison Cooper was named chief executive at Imperial Tobacco in May 2010, Deidre Mahlan was appointed chief finance officer at Diageo last October, and Liz Doherty was tapped as CFO at Reckitt Benckiser last January.

In the case of Martello it’s a high profile case of moving from the world’s biggest retail chain (Wal-Mart) to the world largest food company.

Until her Nestle appointment, Martello was a rising star at Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retail chain. As executive vice president of global e-commerce for emerging markets, Martello managed one of Wal-Mart’s fastest-growing business segments — emerging markets.

In 2010, she spearheaded the launch of e-commerce in China and Japan from a new global business unit based in San Francisco, California.
Martello joined Wal-Mart in 2005 and became chief financial officer of the international division of America’s biggest private sector employer. Last year, she was promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer of Wal-Mart’s global e-commerce.

A certified public accountant, Martello obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Accountancy from the University of the Philippines in Diliman. She also has an MBA in Management Information Systems from the University of Minnesota.

She started her career at Kraft where she spent 10 years in diverse financial roles including audit, international reporting, financial systems, strategic planning and financial planning and analysis.

After that, she accepted the position of Corporate Controller for Borden Foods and then went on to lead a smaller but exciting company, NCH Marketing Services, a global provider of promotional management solutions, where she was the US President.

In 2008, she was honored by the Asian Women in Business for corporate leadership.

A one-page resume posted on the Nestle website said Martello, 53, was born and raised in the Philippines. Her family moved to the US soon after she finished college in Manila to enable the academically-inclined siblings to pursue advanced educational opportunities.

She and her four siblings achieved that objective and went on to earn advanced degrees.