Industrial gas company Air Products has lined up Matthew Lepore as its next general counsel, replacing Sean Major who resigned earlier this month.
Lepore was most recently GC at German chemical company BASF. At Air Products, he will take on the GC, secretary and chief compliance officer roles, bringing three decades of legal, commercial and compliance expertise. He will assume his new position on 18 August and report directly to the company’s CEO Eduardo Menezes.
Allentown, Pennsylvania-based Air Products is an industrial gas supplier and one of the world’s leading providers of hydrogen, generating $12bn in sales last year.
Menezes said: “Matt is a seasoned executive and respected leader with a track record of driving efficiency, developing teams and upholding excellence across legal, transactional and governance disciplines. We look forward to him joining Air Products and being part of our team.”
Lepore spent more than a decade at BASF across roles in the US and Germany, before leaving last month. He originally joined in 2014 as GC of its North American affiliate BASF Corporation, becoming global head of legal in 2018 and relocating to Germany, where he was promoted to group GC in 2021.
Prior to his time at BASF, he spent five years at pharma giant Pfizer in New York as corporate secretary and chief governance counsel, having previously been a partner at DLA Piper. He also had a spell as a trial attorney in the US Department of Justice.
Major, meanwhile, resigned this month after more than eight years in the role. His departure comes as the company embarks on a strategy reset following the appointment of Menezes as CEO earlier this year.
Prior to his time at Air Products, Major was GC at legacy mining company Joy Global for 10 years and assistant GC at Johnson Controls for almost a decade before that. Major’s first in-house role was counsel at healthcare business Abbott, having previously worked in private practice, initially at Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu in Tokyo and then at Dickinson Wright in Chicago.
In other US energy-related moves, back in December Constellation hired Jenner & Block partner and energy practice co-chair Matthew Price as GC, replacing David Dardis, who was promoted to chief legal and policy officer.
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