Missouri In House Counsel Legal news, updates and analysis
Rising Star
Associate General Counsel, Anheuser-Busch
For many college students, studying abroad is an undergraduate rite of passage — more cultural exchange than exercise in academic rigor or career prep.
Not so for Tyler Winn, whose summer at Saint Louis University School of Law’s campus in Madrid paved the way to his current role as a fast-rising associate general counsel for his hometown’s iconic brewer.
In Spain, Winn worked as a faculty fellow for William Johnson, a former corporate attorney and director of SLU’s Center for International and Comparative Law who now is dean of the law school.
Winn then “hopped on a train” bound for Paris and a summer internship with the international firm Bernard-Hertz-Bejot. There, he handled commercial transactions and collaborated with French clients working in the United States as well as a French firm enmeshed in discovery under the Hague Convention’s international accords.
Once he returned home, he worked as an intern for U.S. District Judge John A. Ross of the Eastern District of Missouri and then in a similar role with Anheuser-Busch.
“I instantly fell in love with the culture there,” said Winn, a 2016 SLU Law grad. “Everyone was always willing and open to take the time to help me. And being from St. Louis, Anheuser-Busch is just a huge part of the fabric of the city. I knew I wanted to come back.”
He would soon get that opportunity. After a year as general counsel at Pipkins Inc., a Chesterfield-based software firm, Winn joined AB in May 2017.
“In just over three years, Tyler has established himself as a true owner at Anheuser-Busch,” a colleague wrote in nominating Winn.
“His impact was immediate, as he led regulatory compliance support for two sales regions in the Midwest,” his nominator added.” Within two years, during which Tyler demonstrated agility and ambition to take on many new challenges, he stretched his practice to take on two additional sales regions, supporting several hundred internal business stakeholders.”
Winn’s work on a distribution contract for the company’s expanding brand portfolio earned him a promotion in March to head the legal team of Beyond Beer. As its name suggests, the new business unit focuses on such products as canned wine and spirits, non-alcoholic beverages and the like. That includes Bud Light Seltzer, the brand’s entry into the booming hard seltzer market.
Away from the office, the Parkway West graduate and former collegiate golfer at Central Methodist University still enjoys hitting the links. Along with his wife, whose family has roots in Wisconsin, he’s an avid fan of the NFL Green Bay Packers. How diehard? The couple’s dogs are named Packer and Lambeau, after the team’s home field.
Working in an in-house role, Winn said, fulfills what he considers “the essence of being an attorney: helping others achieve their goals.”
He also put in a plug on behalf of his specialization for those law students who are still trying to find their way.
“A lot of people think law school is just about the cases or doing trial work or working for a law firm. At SLU, I was grateful to have a lot of opportunities. I’d encourage law students to look for any opportunities to step outside your comfort zone. You don’t know where you’re going to end up,” he said.
“The best preparation for an in-house role is to have as much different experience as possible.”
