Molson Coors Taps NiSource for Legal, Government Affairs Chief

Molson Coors Beverage Co. is getting a new chief legal and government affairs officer in Anne-Marie D’Angelo, who is leaving her post as general counsel at NiSource Inc., one of the largest U.S. utility companies.

Molson Coors has been searching for a new legal and government affairs chief since Sept. 17, when E. Lee Reichert, who held the role for the past decade, retired to take a public service position.

NiSource deputy general counsel for regulatory Kimberly Cuccia will succeed D’Angelo on a temporary basis as interim general counsel while the company does a nationwide search for a permanent replacement.

Molson Coors, dually based in Montreal and Golden, Colo., was created in 2005 via a merger between the Molson and Coors breweries. The company paid $12 billion in 2016 to acquire the Miller beer brand.

D’Angelo started her legal career two decades ago as an associate at mid-sized Chicago law firm Burke, Warren, MacKay & Serritella. She currently owns $222,000 in NiSource stock, according to Bloomberg data. She was not one of the utility’s five highest-paid executives in 2020.

NiSource named D’Angelo its general counsel in 2019. She was previously the top lawyer at Global Brass & Copper Holdings Inc. and also spent more than a dozen years in-house at McDonald’s Corp., where D’Angelo was general counsel for the fast-food giant’s East Coast business and development team.

“During her tenure at NiSource, Anne-Marie significantly developed the legal team and processes, further bolstered the company’s ethics and ESG programs and enhanced our proxy,” said a statement from NiSource President and CEO Joseph Hamrock. “We wish Anne-Marie every success as she transitions into her new role with Molson Coors and the next phase of her career.”

Reichert, who D’Angelo is replacing at Molson Coors, is now a deputy attorney general for business and licensing in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

He said in a recent post to his LinkedIn profile that he started providing outside counsel to what is now Molson Coors in the early 2000s. He founded Denver-based firm Kamlet Reichert, which was acquired in 2010 by what is now Lathrop GPM.

“Over the years, I got to know and learn from the 6th and 7th generation members of the Molson family and the 4th and 5th generation Coors family members who make the company so unique,” Reichert said. “Along the way, we built a fantastic legal and government affairs team.”

Reichert received more than $2.1 million in total compensation from Molson Coors in 2020, according to a proxy statement filed by the company. Bloomberg data shows that he currently owns nearly $1.7 million in Molson Coors stock.

NiSource, which paid $143 million in 2019 to settle a series of lawsuits related to natural gas explosions in the Boston area the year before, has continued to face litigation over that disaster, which killed one person and displaced 30,000 residents.

NiSource’s most recent proxy for 2020 shows it paid more than $2.6 million in total compensation to Carrie Hightman, a former legal chief and CEO of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, the unit involved in the gas pipeline explosions three years ago.

Hightman stepped down in January following the completion of NiSource’s $1.1 billion sale of Columbia Gas to Eversource Energy. NiSource subsequently promoted D’Angelo from senior to executive vice president of the Merrillville, Ind.-based utility.