About

Elmar Büth joined 3M as general counsel of supply chain operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa in 2014, and was appointed general counsel to the business operations in 3M’s East Region in 2016. Prior to joining 3M, he served as corporate counsel Europe at manufacturing company Mettler Toledo from 2007 to 2014 where he reported directly to the group general counsel. Before moving to Switzerland he worked as an in-house lawyer for a group company of Deutsche Telekom in Germany and for law firms and institutions in Düsseldorf, Tokyo, Brussels and New York. Büth is admitted to practice law in Germany, received an LLM from the University of London and holds a law degree from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Bonn. Büth is a faculty member and lecturer at the in-house counsel Certificate of Advanced Studies course offered by the University of Zurich, a highly innovative program that is ground-breaking for the legal practice in Switzerland. Highlights of his work for 3M include numerous acquisitions, divestitures and finance projects as well as successful litigations in some major cases. He has worked on a US$2.5bn US$2bn acquisition in the safety business, the EMEA supply chain support with the divestiture of a US$900m division, and the execution of a substantial corporate financing. An in-house highlight for him involved taking a, ‘lead role in creating an Indian legal service team serving the global legal team which had a great impact and led to a significant improvement of the daily work of the global legal team. This project was an eye opener and taught me how to overcome various challenges, to think out of the box and to be innovative in finding more efficient ways to provide legal solutions and how the legal profession needs to develop itself’. Building the legal department from scratch, Büth learnt that as in-house counsel it is important to understand the business needs while always keeping an eye on the legal risks and challenges: ‘I enjoy balancing these risks and finding best solutions and a way forward which ideally accommodates all needs and concerns [and] takes pride in being regarded as a business partner by my non-legal colleagues’.