About

Ingrid Baeten started her career as legal counsel for international group Puratos in 1985, a company dedicated to bakers, pastry chefs and chocolatiers. She left Puratos in 1992 to join Campbell’s Soup as European legal counsel based at the European headquarters. In 1997, she joined Deloitte & Touch, first in the Antwerp offices and later in Brussels. After a few years there she became legal director with her main areas of responsibility in corporate law, M&A, IP and commercial law. She then joined McCain, the world’s largest manufacturer of frozen potato products in 2007, first as European legal counsel with two lawyers reporting to her and at that time she was reporting to the chief financial officer Europe. In 2012 she became general counsel with expanded responsibility over the years, in new territories such as Russia, Great Britain and the Middle East North Africa region, dealing with CSR projects and compliance matters. ‘When I joined McCain, the lawyers had a purely local role, dealing with legal issues as they came and on an individual basis. One of my tasks was to create a European legal department. Over the years, together with our increased responsibilities I am proud to say that we are considered by the majority of our business people as a real business partner’, she explains. Since then Baeten has established a dual reporting line with the European CEO and chief legal officer based in Toronto and has helped build up the function to the team of four lawyers and two legal assistants that it is today. She has shown particular competence in a number of complex M&A deals, namely the acquisition of Lutosa in Belgium, Cela Vita and AdVanGeloven in Holland. As of 2015, along with all the vice presidents of the European business, she became a member of the European senior leadership team, helping to define the company’s European strategy and providing input on all important management decisions.