Chandra Mitchell Builds a New Legal Function

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When she joined Pactiv Evergreen as chief legal officer and corporate secretary a year into the pandemic, Chandra Mitchell already had significant in-house experience on her résumé. She had held COO and GC roles at Yamaha Motor Ventures and other legal roles at Toyota North America and DRS Technologies. But the Pactiv Evergreen role came with a whole new level of challenges.

For one, Mitchell needed to build out a legal team nearly from scratch. Also, the food packaging and food service products company had gone public a year before Mitchell came on board. Furthermore, the pandemic itself added to the complexities because it severely limited in-person interactions. Mitchell met the new CEO, Mike King, in person only once before she accepted the role.

But Mitchell had a few aces up her sleeve. More than a decade earlier, she had helped facilitate several acquisitions that eventually formed Pactiv Evergreen. Mitchell had also worked on the deal that brought in Pactiv Evergreen’s majority shareholder, Reynolds Consumer Products, in the late 2000s. Essentially, Mitchell had a hand in creating the modern Pactiv Evergreen, though she wouldn’t come in-house until many years later.

“I was so glad that when the pandemic provided some significant challenges for us, Pactiv thought of me,” Mitchell says. “There was so much going on, with the company having gone public, a new CEO, and the pandemic environment. The growing pains of this organization were just being felt. I relish tough challenges, and it was a great time to come on, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.”

Working from home didn’t slow Mitchell down at all. Aside from the occasional small, in-person meeting, she built relationships across functions and got to know the public company’s stakeholders remotely.

“I don’t know many people who are experts in building a legal team from scratch remotely,” Mitchell says with a laugh. “Pactiv Evergreen is a conglomeration of many different organizations, and we were still running that way when I got here, particularly for the legal team.”

At every organization Mitchell had been part of previously, the “one company” mindset was critical in creating shared processes and cohesion across the business. Mitchell developed thirty-, sixty-, and ninety-day plans to diagnose the legal team’s areas of improvement. She held informal interviews with business and finance leaders to learn what gaps her team could fill. She introduced best practices she’d learned at Toyota and DRS but tweaked them to match the culture at Pactiv Evergreen.

“There was so much going on, with the company having gone public, a new CEO, and the pandemic environment. I relish tough challenges, and it was a great time to come on, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.”

Chandra Mitchell

Given the company’s core manufacturing business, safety is a top priority. Mitchell sought out new team members who embodied that culture of safety—amazing attorneys who could also model the organization’s core behaviors and values.

“I found people who had that spark, who were engaged, and who found doing hard things intellectually stimulating,” Mitchell explains. “One of my lawyers told me that every day she comes to work, there is a new, hard puzzle to solve. If you like that kind of challenge, you’re going to like being on my team.”

In addition to leading the legal team, Mitchell sponsors the company’s social responsibility pillar. At the CEO’s request, she established more formalized giving programs across the company. For example, the company holds a philanthropic competition across functions and plants. Pactiv Evergreen has also focused on food insecurity, hosting lunch-packing events for students who aren’t always sure where their next meal is coming from.

These giving initiatives have been well received. The CLO notes that Pactiv Evergreen employees want to give back to their communities and she is very proud to have helped facilitate those efforts.

Mitchell is also excited to serve as the executive sponsor of Pactiv Evergreen’s first affinity group: a group for women. “So many companies have long-running resource groups, but because we’re the result of a lot of different companies coming together, this is where our path begins,” Mitchell says. “We’ve realized quickly how important these groups are and how much it means for people to come together. We have ideas for new groups going forward, and I’m thankful to be here for the launch of our first.”

In three years, working quickly and aggressively, Mitchell has taken Pactiv Evergreen from a newly public company to one providing significant value for its shareholders, all the while improving the work environment and strengthening ties to the communities where the company operates.

Indeed, Mitchell’s focused and results-oriented approach seems to have paid off. In December 2024, Pactiv announced its agreement to combine with Novolex, a manufacturer of diverse packaging products, in a transaction valued at $6.7 billion. Mitchell is pleased and proud to have been a crucial part of that successful effort and she’s excited to see what the future holds.

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