Country Legal and Contracting Counsel lead (SA) at Accenture

Job Summary:

• Participate in local and global leadership meetings as required from time to time. Maintain general oversight and advisory role in relation to all legal matters impacting on Accenture in the local market as well as other markets in which the Company operates. Engage as necessary with other legal leads locally and globally to ensure awareness regarding relevant matters and connected engagement between all legal functions. Provide pro-active legal advice to business and leadership regarding matters of concern.
• Review, draft, and negotiate several types of client-facing contractual agreements in a fast-paced corporate environment. Act, and continuously evolve as, a knowledgeable and relevant advisor on legal and commercial risks associated with transactions while supporting Legal, Business and Sales Leadership in shaping and executing Accenture’s market-facing strategy.

Key Responsibilities: 

• Maintain “one legal” engagement model between all legal functions in South Africa, and ensure correct engagement with global legal functions;
• Engage with business leadership and participate in relevant local and, as applicable, global leadership forums in order to provide business with pro-active advice and guidance on matters of interest impacting on legal position/risk of the Company
• Oversee and guide implementation of revised contract models from time to time including guiding colleagues in global legal delivery centres on matters pertaining to local law and local contracting requirements, reviewing, drafting and negotiating agreements and requests for proposals/other client tender documents as indicated above;
• Structure, negotiate and close client transactions to be most advantageous from a legal and business perspective;
• Oversee, counsel, guide, train and support junior CLPs and Global Legal Network collegues;
• Stay abreast of developments affecting the company, its clients, and industries and synthesize the information to incorporate it into company’s transactional practices;
• Educate and advise company executives with respect to legal and risk management issues;
• Develop subject matter expertise in one of more areas that benefit Legal and/or our business;
• Participate in developing internal guidelines, toolkits, and packaged knowledge capital on various legal and business issues;
• Support, promote and implement Legal Group initiatives;

Relationships:

• Reports to: Contracting Lead UKIA
• Supervises: Local contracting team
• External Relationships: Accenture client executives and negotiating teams; outside counsel

Qualifications:

• Appropriate Legal degree(s)
• Admitted attorney or advocate (whether practicing or non-practicing) in at least South Africa
• Minimum 10 years of transactional experience in digital, consulting, systems integration, and/or outsourcing areas in roles with increasing responsibility following date of admission as attorney or advocate. Such experience should be in a law firm, private legal practice, or in a fast-paced corporate legal/transaction group in a relevant industry;
• Experience across a broad range of different disciplines/legal areas  will be advantageous, including litigation, corporate governance, public sector procurement law, competition law, labour law, corporate law – expert knowledge in all areas is not required, but sufficient familiarity with these areas will be necessary so as to enable you to identify any potential issues or risks related to business transactions and contracts or the business in general and to provide guidance as to resolution of matter including by engaging appropriate external counsel to provide specialist advice as needed.   

Knowledge and Skill Requirements:

• Proven ability to interact with senior leadership and function at leadership level in a large and complex organization and having held demonstrable senior leadership position(s);
• Proven capabilities/familiarity with a broad area of legal disciplines sufficient to fulfil oversight and advisory role;
• Proven contracting history as lead negotiator
• Proven ability to efficiently manage a large volume of transactions.
• Experience negotiating technology-based arrangements;
• Demonstrable ability to independently manage drafting and reviewing of transactional documents and correspondence;
• Strong executive presence;
• Able to present alternatives and propose solutions to issues, and must be sufficiently skilled, and strong enough to form and defend opinions held both internally and externally as required;
• Strong time management, prioritization, and organizational skills;
• Ability to work independently as well as part of local and/or global teams;
• Ability to apply judgment to broaden influence;
• Excellent oral and written communication skills;
• Proficient in MS Office suite of products.

Additional Desirable Criteria:

• Experience in working with state and local government agencies.
• Experience in a multi-jurisdictional environment with knowledge of cross-border transactions.