About

A Fortune 500 company, Dean Foods is a food and beverage company with 16,000 employees and annual sales of approximately $8bn. In 2016, the firm hired the highly experienced Russell F. Coleman as executive vice president, general counsel, corporate secretary and government affairs in order to oversee the company’s legal and regulatory matters. He describes some of the changes he has implemented in the legal department during his time at the company: ‘I’ve placed additional emphasis on individual professional growth of the attorneys and other colleagues in our legal department, to include new legal subject matter responsibilities. We believe this emphasis allows us, as a legal department, to provide better legal service – specifically a better “understanding of the nuances of our business” foundation from which to provide legal services’. Immediately prior to Dean Foods, Coleman spent two years as a partner in a Dallas-based law firm, Meadows Collier, before which he enjoyed a decade long spell at national media company Belo Corp, serving as general counsel in his first five years there before adding senior vice president duties to his role. Commenting on some of his achievements during this period, Coleman highlights the 2008 spin-off of Belo Corp’s newspapers business from the parent media company as well as the major 2013 sale of the company to Gannett Co.