LinkedIn of Nestlé Malaysia CEO & Region Head hacked and spews hate!

On November 16th, it was truly a night of excitement and celebration at the Malaysian CMO Awards 2018. A total of 39 awards were given out, including the Best Marketer in B2B, Best Marketer in e-Commerce, Best Marketer in Travel & Hospitality and more.

The coveted Malaysian CMO of the Year 2018 accolade was jointly awarded to Santharuban Thurai Sundaram of Etika Holdings and Eugene Lee of McDonald’s Malaysia.

Santharuban expressed his thanks on his LinkedIn account to his network, “Blessed to be awarded CMO Marketer of the year 2018 plus a Gold award in the F&B category. A big thanks to my colleagues, the management of Etika, Prof Harmandar Singh aka Ham,  Marketingmagazine.Asia as well as Dentsu LHS, Tony Savarimuthu, Entropia Global…”

However Alois Hofbauer, Chief Executive Officer & Region Head of Nestlé left a rather nasty comment to this post. “Self-centered Marketing EgoMania…..not serving the brand, but brands to serve his own glory..”

His comment then received a severe backlash from others who commented that “if you can’t be happy for another person’s success, don’t have to undermine them with such a comment.”

Twenty minutes later, Alois commented to his post stating that his account was hacked. The comment has since been removed from the post.

Joel Aaoran Miranda, Key Brand Manager at Metro Media Publishing, Fairfax Media Group expressed his thoughts on the “hacked” comment,

“As a thought leader myself, I was stunned at a response towards CMO of the year Malaysia, My very good friend Santharuban. I did some research and found it came from a CEO of a direct competitor. It seems to me a bit of sour grapes as they call it if I have to be brutally honest. How would the staff of that organisation feel for having such a boss? If this is how he behaves on a social platform that’s open, how would he behave at work?. Industry recognises talent with the hundreds of positive comments from all the industry people about him and having known Ruban personally he is a talent. As a friend, I am appalled by this but I am even more shocked as I never seen a CEO behave this way. Thoughts anyone? Do u think this is how a CEO should behave? after reading it I am just shocked to see someone senior behave this way.”

Alois will be stepping down as Chief Executive Officer & Region Head of Nestlé, as he will be leaving the Nestlé Group to pursue other interests outside the company, which a news report stated would be at a leading Saudi dairy manufacturer. Hofbauer, an Austrian, has had a long career with the Nestlé Group, having served the group since December 1990. He has been the Chief Executive Officer & Region Head of Nestlé since Feb 22, 2013. Prior to his role in Malaysia, he was the managing director of Nestlé Sri Lanka.

MARKETING magazine Malaysia wishes Alois continued success, as he explores his future beyond our shores. We hope the hacking issues of his Linkedin account do not follow him into his next career posting.

Good people deserve fame, and that includes Alois.

We wish to sincerely congratulate him and Nestlé Malaysia for being awarded the top spot by The Edge for Highest Return of Equity over Three Years in the Consumer Products sector.