Logistics Giant Raids Waste Disposal Firm for New Legal Chief

XPO Logistics Inc., a Fortune 100 logistics and transportation company, is moving in a new top lawyer.

Kurt Rogers, general counsel of medical and pharmaceutical waste management firm Stericycle Inc., was announced Jan. 9 as the new chief legal officer and corporate secretary at Greenwich, Conn.-based XPO.

Rogers, who joined Stericycle in 2017 after seven years as chief legal officer for cloud communications provider Vonage Holdings Corp., did not respond to a request for comment about his new position. Bradley Jacobs, XPO’s chairman and CEO, praised Rogers’ expertise in a statement.

“Kurt is a results-oriented leader with a talent for aligning legal functions with strategic organizational goals,” Jacobs said. “He brings extensive expertise in areas important to our strategy, including M&A, intellectual property, and international law.”

XPO spokeswoman Erin Kurtz told Bloomberg Law that Rogers, who has previously been a partner at Latham & Watkins and now-defunct Bingham McCutchen, will be the new global leader of XPO’s legal group. XPO’s last company-wide general counsel, Gordon Devens, left in 2017.

At the time, XPO hired Monica Thurman, a former assistant general counsel at oilfield services giant Halliburton Co., to be its chief compliance officer. Thurman is now no longer with the company, Kurtz said.

Karlis Kirsis, a former Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom associate who has served as a senior vice president and corporate counsel at XPO since 2016, took over as the company’s lead in-house lawyer in 2017 after Devens’ departure. Kirsis has now been promoted to European chief legal officer at XPO and will report to Rogers. Both lawyers start their new jobs Feb. 3.

CEO Switch

Bannockburn, Ill.-based Stericycle did not respond to a request for comment about who would replace Rogers as general counsel.

Nor did former Katten Muchin Rosenman partner Michael Weisman, the company’s current chief ethics and compliance officer. He joined Stericycle, which specializes in the collection and disposal of regulated substances, in early 2018 after serving as compliance chief at food giant the Kraft Heinz Co.

Rogers did not appear on Stericycle’s most recent proxy statement detailing the compensation of its five highest-paid executives. Bloomberg data shows he owns Stericycle stock currently valued at $111,000.

Stericycle installed a new CEO last year in Cindy Miller, a former president at United Parcel Service Inc., who has sought to put the debt-saddled company on a stronger financial footing following a string of sizeable acquisitions.

Stericycle turned to Sidley Austin and Canadian law firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg in 2015 to handle its $2.3 billion purchase of Oakville, Ontario-based document destruction company Shred-it International Inc., having paid another $275 million the year prior to acquire PSC Environmental Services Inc.

XPO has also been busy snapping up other companies in recent years, tapping Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz to advise on its $3 billion buy in 2015 of Ann Arbor, Mich.-based trucking and logistics company Con-way Inc., a deal that created one of the largest truckload services companies in North America.

Bloomberg data shows that over the past five years labor and employment-focused law firms Jackson Lewis, Constangy Brooks Smith & Prophete, Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart, Seyfarth Shaw, and Littler Mendelson have handled the bulk of XPO’s outside legal work. Jackson Lewis recently represented XPO in a $16.5 million wage-related class action settlement in California.