Not everyone was enthused. To many
in America, the merger signaled another
sad chapter in the economic downturn—a
foreign takeover of a cherished, family-owned American cultural institution. Many
feared that jobs would be cut, breweries
would be stripped for parts and the famous
Budweiser Clydesdales would be put to
pasture. There were indeed casualties.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the
layoffs of 1, 400 salaried U.S. employees
and 415 contractors while the new company
consolidated its resources. Other cost-cutting measures—the sale of Busch
Entertainment Corp.’s 10 theme parks,
including Busch Gardens and Sea World—
were necessary, but the Anheuser-Busch
name and legacy, as well as its U.S. brewing
operations, remained largely intact.
“We all felt an enormous sense of
responsibility that this was bringing
together two companies with rich
histories,” Chalmers says. “And not all
mergers, not all combinations, work.
Lawyers often fixate on the deal: How big
is the deal? When does it close? I think I
was equally aware that the deal was only
the first step in ensuring that we as a legal
and corporate affairs team got through it
as seamlessly as possible, and making sure
the sum was greater than the parts.”
Anheuser-Busch InBev emerged a
sleeker, more modern and more global
company. Chalmers and the in-house
legal and corporate affairs team carefully
aligned along the new company’s
five geographic zones, each of which
appointed a head of legal and corporate
affairs to sit on a management committee
and report to Chalmers and the regional
president. A more robust panel of external
law firms, which included both InBev and
Anheuser-Busch advisers, was settled,
and worked in concert with in-house
lawyers, resulting in better training and
development for the in-house team.
Meanwhile, Chalmers’ M&A acumen was
put to the test, as AB InBev revenues grew
by more than fivefold over the past decade,
thanks in part to acquisitions, including
Mexico’s Grupo Modelo. In recent years
the company has also acquired brands like
South Korea’s Oriental Brewery Co. Ltd.
and American craft brewers like Chicago’s
Goose Island Beer Co. and Long Island’s
Blue Point Brewing Co. In 2012, for the first
time ever, more than half of Budweiser
production— 51 percent—was sold outside
of the U.S. Where the old-model AB
depended on North American sales and a
few international distribution networks, the
new regime focused on emerging markets
in Asia and Latin America.
In 2014, the company continued as
a major sponsor of the FIFA World Cup
in Brazil, while a team of Clydesdales
underwent a goodwill tour of China. They
even were projected on the Great Wall. “It
was a massive success,” Chalmers says.
“They were real rock stars in China.”
“We became a really global company,”
she says. “AB was very much an American
company, and [InBev] was very much a
company with a very small U.S. presence.
Here was this amazing brand with a very
rich heritage in the U.S., with enormous
international potential, and what InBev
brought was the network. We could launch
Budweiser in Brazil, in Russia, really grow
it in China.”
As AB InBev’s chief legal and corporate
affairs officer, Chalmers supervises a
150-member legal team on a global
scale for the world’s largest brewer, a
company with more than $43 billion in
annual revenue in 2013 and over 150,000
employees in 25 countries. She and her
team are the company’s pulse throughout
all of AB InvBev’s markets, especially North
America, Latin America, Western Europe,
Eastern Europe and Asia, where she deals
with matters ranging from her specialty of
commercial law to the compliance program
to corporate social responsibility initiatives—
for each unique setting. Her travel schedule
is, in a word, extensive. There are the board
meetings in Belgium and management
meetings in Beijing, Sao Paulo, St. Louis
and so on. While Skype and email have their
place, “A big aspect of the job is visibility,
the people issues, and just helping the
teams,” she says, “whether I’m recruiting
great lawyers or great corporate affairs
professionals. You drive engagement by
spending time with them, being with them,
talking about their issues.”
“There aren’t too many people in the
business community who are truly citizens
of the world, but she really is,” says John
Blood, the company’s VP of legal. “She
is multicultural, and comfortable in all
different geographies, and when she’s
there, she thrives, absorbs the local
nuances and culture and uses that to make
our business better.”
Colleagues laud her ability in nuts-
and-bolts legal work: the contracts,
negotiations, strategies, and departmental
restructuring that a quality corporate
lawyer delivers. “She’s a very excellent
technical lawyer,” Blood says. “Particularly
in the M&A areas. By the time you’re
general counsel for a major consumer
products company, it’s tough to maintain
that functional expertise, but she has that.”
But it’s Chalmers’ uncommon blend of
the procedural and the personable that
sets her apart from upper management ilk.
Aquila calls it the “the ultimate empathy.”
“She an extraordinarily smart lawyer,
one of the smartest I’ve worked with in a
31-year career,” he says. “But I’ve worked
“We all felt an enormous sense of responsibility
that this was bringing together two companies
with rich histories,” Chalmers says. “And not all
mergers, not all combinations, work.”
