*The Lebanese CEO pay equal 0.8% of company’s profit in 2025
WorldStage– Wassim Elhusseini, CEO and highest-paid Nestlé Nigeria’s director, has an attitude. And his company likes it.
“The Nestlé policy is to hire staff with personal attitudes and professional skills…,”the company stated in its 2025 AFS as one of its 10 corporate business principles.
It’s the reason Nestlé paid the Lebanese N874 million in 2025, 0.8 percent of its 2025 profit after tax. The take-home showed a 443 percent raise from N161 million he earned when he took office in 2020.
There’s an X-factor about Wassim and his attitude. For one, he considers himself the symbol of all that Nestlé Nigeria stands for.
“You have to represent the values of the company as a person,” he said in an interview with Business Day Television after he won an award.
That attitude means all the money to Nestlé. It nurtures it—by treating everyone with respect and dignity.
“And we expect everyone to promote a sense of personal responsibility.”
Wassim seems to have met that expectation. And Nestlé doesn’t mind the reward. Even when the condition doesn’t favor it.
The CEO earned N831 million in 2024, the year forex headwind took out most its profit.
Barely weathering that storm and returning to profit, it topped Wassim’s 2024 pay 5.2 percent higher in 2025.
Wassim really represented Nestlé’s values, considering the figures over the seven years he’s been in charge.
Under him, the company generated N287 billion in revenue in 2020, which grew 23 percent to N352 billion in 2021; its PAT rose to N40 billion in 2021, from N29 billion. By 2025 year end, Wassim, a former sales director of the company in the Middle East, grew Nestlé Nigeria revenue to N1.21 trillion—that was 321.6 percent growth from the 2020 revenue figure.
Call that success. And Nestle will credit its people for it. According to the principle, the long-term success of the company depends on it attracts and keeps the likes of Wassim who ensure its growth.
It appears this species of success-magnets are mainly expatriates—from South Africa to Mexico and Lebanon. Wassim is the fourth since Olusegun Osunkeye, the last Nigerian CEO of Nestlé Nigeria, retired.
From most indications, the company presents a place secure for such go-getters to nestle down.
“We protect our employees’ privacy and do not tolerate any form of harassment or discrimination,” the company says.
The ‘highest paid director’ statement in its annual report proves that protection.
