About

PPG’s offices in Switzerland serve as the company’s regional headquarters for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), meaning that the Swiss legal team has had to be more internationally agile than ever. Xavier Schops, general counsel for the EMEA region, has substantially redesigned and expanded the remit of the team. He created a powerful compliance function and branched out to increase the number of nationalities by creating a team in Russia and Poland. To continually develop the capabilities of the team, he went on to hire diverse talents to help face new challenges such as emerging regions, M&A and regulatory scrutiny. Schops also streamlined the organisation in order to boost efficiency and focus on value-added operations. PPG operates in more than 70 countries and has a reported net sales of $15.3bn, it is to this end that the team has had to expand accordingly. A new legal team for the Asia-Pacific region has been created, which Schops manages from Europe. The expansion and development of the team is a strong indication of the important role legal plays for PPG and its future development in the global supply of paints, coatings, specialty materials, and chemicals.