Former Nestlé S.A. chief executive Laurent Freixe during a general shareholders meeting in Ecublens, near Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 16. Photo by GABRIEL MONNET/AFP via Getty Images files

Nestlé S.A. just delivered a thunderclap to corporate boardrooms everywhere: it fired its chief executive for cause. Not resigned. Not “retired to pursue other opportunities.” Fired. With no severance , no notice, and certainly no golden handshake. No one is too important to fire — not even the CEO of a multibillion-dollar company.

For the world’s largest food company to take this extraordinary step shows how corporate governance has changed. If a global behemoth will summarily dismiss its top executive, what hope does the middle manager in Toronto or Calgary have when they cross the line?

Boa

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