Allen Cai

Can a well-recognised but underloved multinational resonate with a youthful Chinese audience? Allen Cai is on a mission to prove it can, repositioning Nestlé’s army of brands—from Nespresso capsules to Hsu Fu Chi biscuits—to be disruptive and more appealing to a new generation of consumers.

Appointed in early 2025 against a backdrop of flagging sales, Cai brought considerable FMCG experience from roles at Unilever and Kraft Heinz, where he was responsible for extending the reach of products such as Heinz Tomato Ketchup through attention-grabbing collaborations with Kate Spade, among others.

At Nestlé China, he has emphasised the use of data and greater agility in decision-making, battling internal silos to better share intelligence across the business and drive conversion across categories. Most of all, he has looked to build the social capital of Nestlé’s portfolio, which has led to bold moves such as aligning its ice cream brands with the Su Chao—an amateur football league in Jiangsu province which has drawn huge crowds and global media attention for its intense competition, leading to 8.8 billion impressions for Nestlé campaigns—and the popular Strawberry Music Festival.

While the turnaround is still very much a work in progress, Nestlé’s food and beverage division has outpaced industry averages in the market, and its market share in soluble coffee has grown to 78% in the past year. Awareness and trust across the ice cream category has risen significantly, and there are encouraging signs products are resonating among 18-24-year-olds in particular. Along the way, Cai has incorporated 30 Nestlé coffee brands into Alibaba’s carbon-tracking tool and developed a sustainability-led marketing campaign linked to five million bottle sales in three months.