This year, Nestle Saudi Arabia is celebrating the third successful year of the Nestle Centre of Excellence in Saudi Arabia.

The Nestle training programs for 2013 and 2014 graduated 56 students in five batches, 40 percent of whom were offered employment at Nestle in newly created positions.

The graduation ceremony was held at the Park Hyatt Hotel, with the attendance of government dignitaries, universities, NGO’s, media and families of the graduates.

Remy Ejel, country manager of Nestle Saudi Arabia commented: “When we established the scheme over three years ago, we said, ‘A promise made should be a promise kept.’ This year’s graduation confirms that promise once again.”

Yves Manghardt, chairman and CEO of Nestle Middle East, stated: “The Center of Excellence that we started in 2012 in Saudi Arabia is the pioneer in the region and its success has encouraged us to expand it to Oman, where we launched it in September 2014, as a first step of roll out to other countries in the region as well.” “Nestle believes in creating shared value (CSV) as a fundamental part of our way of doing business.

It’s based on the reality that the long-term economic, social and nutrition challenges the world is facing cannot be solved by governments alone, and corporations have a role to play and contribute to the solutions.” Manghardt added.

Three years after its inception, the center has trained a total of 77 students: Executive Certificate — 15 women, nutrition development program –28 women, and Sales Training Academy- 34 men

Nestle’s initiative will not only help graduates gain employment within Nestle, but it will also give them the tools and the means to find work elsewhere within Saudi Arabia. The program ensures a continuous flow of local talent to the organization and contributes to the development and training of external Saudi graduates.