Meet Mauricio Lizárraga - Global Beverage Marketing Manager

Mauricio Lizárraga, Global Beverage Marketing Manager, is a life-long student and a student of life. Whether it’s mastering multiple languages (four – though his colleagues claim it to be more like five or six), earning his Master of Business Administration or learning from those around him, Lizárraga’s curiosity and thirst for knowledge drive him.

After spending the first part of his career with a chemical transnational supporting the automotive OEM coatings and Kevlar businesses, Lizárraga joined Valspar for Packaging Coatings in Berlin, now Sherwin-Williams. He’s lived and worked in multiple countries, collecting languages, customs, and insights into people and cultures. He continues to travel to other countries, primarily in Europe, connecting with people so he can learn how to best support them and work together to help the business succeed.

“I’m looking forward to even more travel – it’s a great way to really bond with individuals,” he says. “Virtual is never going to be the same as when you travel and collaborate directly. You can feel for them [and their situation] but also can appreciate when they reach a milestone and know what they’ve been through.”

Lizárraga’s empathy and desire to relate to others makes him a stand-up leader others rely on.

“My success [in Packaging] stems from the fact that I get along with people and I’m not intending to be right all the time but am intending for the team to win the game,” he explains. “I’m intending to make everyone feel comfortable and everyone feel appreciated.”

Lizárraga relies on his technical training to deeply understand the challenges of teams like Research and Development and works with them to learn, grow and thrive.

“People cope better with stress because they know we’re on the same side, together in this ship,” he adds.

A Varied Path Led to Here

Prior to moving into Marketing, Lizárraga spent five years as a Key Account Manager for one of the largest manufacturers of closures and food cans.  It was an interesting time, because the position reported through two different chains – General Packaging (now Household Products) and Food. The role was even split geographically with each of the two sides of the account having different locations across Europe. What would have been a major challenge for many was tackled by Lizárraga’s people-oriented approach.

“I took the time to visit every single site and know people there and went to the lines and had conversations with operators,” explains Lizárraga. “I really like people, and I want to make them feel important because they ARE important. It gave me a chance to understand. It was a challenging role, but interesting because I saw customers who made all parts  from closures and cans for food and industrial products, to monobloc cans and tubes for beauty and pharmaceutical products, to pails and drums – very broad. It showed me a lot from the side of light metal packaging that wasn’t Beverage. Then moving to Beverage was completely different. At the end of the day, I’m really fortunate to say I’m pretty familiar with the light metal packaging business as a whole and all of its divisions.”

In his current role as Global Beverage Marketing Manager, Lizárraga is primarily focused on brands, a departure from most positions that focus on the can manufacturers themselves. The goal is to speak to these brands and make sure Sherwin-Williams coatings are tested and approved by them, clearing the way for can manufacturers to use our coatings. 

“We want to understand what the brands need today and also what they need in the future so we can bring that information back home and have the team channel it into the laboratory to create the products of tomorrow, to suit those needs of the brands on time and for the future,” he says. 

In his role, he’s responsible for the complete beverage can for the EMEAI region  Europe, Middle East, Africa and India  as well as the can lid on a global scale. 

Learning, and more importantly understanding, the market dynamics is essential. Because the lid, or beverage end, is so compact, it can get transported as a finished product all over the world, from China to the United States to Latin America to EMEAI. There is a lot of activity to track with regards to who sells finished ends and the coils for those ends. These market dynamics drive the coatings technologies, and it is uniquely important that the coatings be approved around the world. By working with global brands to ensure Sherwin-Williams coatings are approved, the Company can best serve manufacturers regardless of where they do business. 

Connecting Across the Business and Industry

Lizárraga’s role requires him to interact with functions at all levels of Sherwin-Williams. His team sees projects from ideation to launch and beyond. Lizárraga loves the opportunity to learn from each of these stages, exploring what went right and what the team can learn from. Throughout the stages, he coordinates with teams from Regulatory, Research and Development, Sales, Operations and Finance, to name a few. 

There is a lot to track in his role, following the beverage end everywhere from China and Japan to Southeast Asia to Mexico to Brazil to United States to Europe and Middle East to South Africa.  Inter-team collaboration is essential. 

 Lizárraga also calls out trade shows as a fantastic learning opportunity, not just within light metal packaging, but also glass and plastic packaging, which are the biggest competitors to aluminum. 

“I’ve learned to ask a lot of questions at shows – not to challenge them, but to learn,” says Lizárraga. 

A Passion for the Future

So, what excites Lizárraga about the future of packaging coatings? 

“For me, it’s providing coatings to the Beverage industry that empower people to use cans instead of PET [polyethylene terephthalate, or plastic] and glass,” he says. “To me, the aluminum beverage can is the most sustainable package in the world. We need to make coatings for beverage cans that hold ever-more sophisticated and aggressive drinks, provide corrosion protection, preserve the packed product's great flavor, and empower the stakeholders who promote and make cans possible.”

“There is a wave that is going to come – once the switch to non-BPA and non-PFAS coatings is a reality, once everything is said and done, the next wave is going to be making coatings that are low cure,” he says. “Making our coatings cure with less energy and effort but at a faster speed so customers can report an improvement in their CO2 footprint. That for me is very exciting because now is the time to gather voice of the customer data to understand trade-offs and expectations.”

Lizárraga is passionate about the long-term use and recyclability of aluminum. He notes that 75% of all aluminum extracted from the Earth is still used today. “We can use aluminum endlessly without depleting its properties,” he says.

Lizárraga is thinking of future generations – he cares deeply about the world he leaves to them.

“We can tell our kids and grandkids, ‘Hey, I tried my best to bring forward what’s best for you.’”

In today’s challenging and fast-paced world, it’s Lizárraga’s devotion to learning – from his surroundings and people around him – that keeps him going. 

“It’s a challenging world, but I always try to do my best and do it with love. If you do things with passion and love, they only wear you out half.”

MAURICIO AT A GLANCE

Title: Global Beverage Marketing Manager

Time With Sherwin-Williams: 11 years

Education: B.S. in chemical engineering and an MBA

For Mauricio, it's about learning: "I’ve learned to ask a lot of questions at shows – not to challenge them, but to learn."