Legal Counsel: SACEA at Mondelez International

• You are responsible for the company’s legal activities in a region, business units and /or sub-function areas in the country or across multiple countries. To support commercial and corporate initiatives, you identify business needs and design and implement our legal strategy through the service delivery model. You advise the business on risk, anticipating and addressing internal and external factors and apply your legal specialty area experience to collaborate with other legal colleagues to address legal issues or concerns.

How you will contribute

• You will develop and ensure the implementation of legal strategies to enable Mondelēz International to compete aggressively, and protect our people, assets and reputation while complying with legal requirements and standards of ethical conduct. You will provide guidance and support to ensure managers are making reasonable and informed decisions regarding legal risks; manage the legal strategy with outside counsel, including spending without compromising financial and reputational risk; and provide in-house and external legal expertise to address the increasingly complex legal environment by partnering with business units, regions and global stakeholders to identify and advise on applicable laws and regulatory changes for a given country and/or across multiple countries.

What you will bring

A desire to drive your future and accelerate your career with experience and knowledge in:

• Legal experience, ideally in a large matrixed multinational company
• Strong analytical, strategic vision, decision-making, and problem-solving skills
• Experience assessing, advising on risk, advising/coaching and dispute resolution in a multinational company
• Highest level of integrity and trust; highly credible and willing to express
• Excellent written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills
• Resourcefulness, including relevant new technologies and systems
• License to practice law in relevant jurisdiction(s)

More about this role

What you need to know about this position:

• To protect the company against legal risk by providing quality legal services and to ensure compliance with law and company policy.
• The role is commercially focused with an emphasis on the drafting and vetting of agreements, negotiating transactions and managing disputes. In addition covers franchising, supply chain, IP, property, consumer protection, HR and disputes.
• The successful candidate will need to function independently as they would be the sole legal resource in the Southern, Central & East Africa (SACEA).

What extra ingredients you will bring:

• Demonstrated people leadership and management.
• High degree of professional ethics and integrity
• Sound judgement and ability to analyse situations and information
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of corporate law and procedures.
• Full comprehension of the influences of the external environment of a multinational corporation.
• Demonstrated ability to create legal defensive or proactive strategies.
• Outstanding communication skills.
• Outstanding problem-solving skills.

Education / Certifications:

• 7 - 9 year’s professional experience post-admission corporate commercial experience with at least 4-5 years’ experience in as Legal in-house role.
• The successful candidate will be required to have at least a working knowledge of IP.
• LLB / Business & Law Degree and proven experience as legal counsel in business environment.

Job specific requirements:

• Manage and advise on contentious and non-contentious legal and regulatory issues related for Mondelez’s business in SACEA.
• Provide company secretarial support for 4 legal entities within SACEA business unit
• Liaise with, support and manage and/or providing advice counsel acting for Mondelez in litigation
• Keep the business updated with applicable law(s) and changes in law(s) to ensure business compliance with law(s).
• Conduct training(s) on applicable law
• Deal with complex matters with multiple stakeholders and forces
• Provide clarification on legal language or specifications to everyone in the organization.
• Communicate and negotiate with external parties (regulators, external counsel, public authority etc.), creating relations of trust
• Research and evaluate different risk factors regarding business decisions and operations
• Apply effective risk management techniques and offer proactive advise on possible legal issues
• Give accurate and timely counsel to executives in a variety of legal topics (labour law, partnerships, international ventures, corporate finance etc)
• Collaborate with management to devise efficient defense strategies
• Specify internal governance policies and regularly monitor compliance