Nestle SA, the world's biggest food company, named Wal-MartStores Inc. executive Wan Ling Martello as chief financial officerto succeed Jim Singh, adding an outsider to a company run byveterans.

Martello, 53, will take charge in April after Singh, 65,retires, Vevey, Switzerland-based Nestle said in a statementyesterday. Martello is currently Wal-Mart's executive vicepresident of global e-commerce and emerging markets and previouslyheld posts at Kraft Foods Inc. and Borden Foods Corp.

The U.S. citizen of Chinese and Filipino heritage will join aboard whose 12 other executives have almost three centuriescombined of experience working at Nestle. She will be the secondperson from outside the Swiss company to take the CFO post in lessthan a decade. Paul Polman, a former Procter & Gamble Co.executive and now head of Unilever, ran Nestle's finances from 2006until early 2008.