General Manager: Legal - Midrand at Dis-Chem Pharmacies

Job Description

• Dis-Chem Pharmacies in Midrand has an opportunity available for a General Manager: Legal to join the Legal team. The General Manager: Legal will be responsible for the operational leadership and management of the Group Legal function, ensuring effective, high-quality, and commercially focused legal service delivery.
• Translates the General Counsel’s strategy into operational priorities, coordinates the Senior Legal Advisor portfolios, manages legal risk, resources and service delivery, and provides senior legal advice and oversight on material, complex or strategically significant matters as required. 

Minimum Requirements

Essential:

• LLB degree or equivalent legal qualification and admission as an Attorney of the High Court of South Africa
• Minimum of 10-15 years post-qualification experience
• Proven experience leading a legal function or legal team, including responsibility for legal service delivery, legal risk, external counsel and complex legal matters
• Strong experience across commercial contracting, negotiation and legal risk management and/or dispute resolution

Advantageous:

• Postgraduate qualification in law, business, governance or company secretarial practice
• Experience implementing legal operations models, legal technology, legal dashboards or process transformation
• Senior in-house legal leadership or management experience within a listed, highly regulated or complex corporate environment
• Experience within retail, healthcare, pharmaceutical, pharmacy, wholesale/distribution or consumer-facing environments

Roles & Responsibilities

Legal Function Leadership & Service Delivery:

• Manage the day-to-day operations of the Group Legal function and implement the strategic direction set by the General Counsel.
• Lead and coordinate the Senior Legal Advisor portfolio, ensuring clear accountability, effective collaboration and an integrated approach to Legal service delivery across specialist areas.
• Implement the Legal strategy, operating model and priorities approved by the General Counsel.
• Develop and implement Legal service standards, turnaround expectations and prioritisation principles, subject to the General Counsel’s approval.
• Allocate and prioritise legal matters based on materiality, complexity, urgency, risk, and capacity.
• Ensure appropriate escalation of material, complex or cross-functional matters.
• Establish quality assurance mechanisms and consistency of legal advice.
• Implement the operating arrangements required for the Legal function to deliver an integrated service
• Identify capacity constraints and specialist capability requirements.

Legal Risk & Enterprise Risk Management:

• Coordinate the identification, consolidation and reporting of material legal risks for integration into the Group’s broader enterprise risk-management framework, under the direction of the General Counsel and in collaboration with the relevant Risk and Compliance functions.
• Monitor recurring legal issues, disputes, regulatory exposures and contractual risks to identify systemic themes requiring business intervention.
• Coordinate Legal’s input into identification, assessment, mitigation and reporting of material enterprise risks.
• Ensure material legal exposures are promptly escalated to the General Counsel and as directed by the General Counsel, to executive management and relevant governance structures.
• Partner with Risk, Compliance, Governance and other control functions to align legal enterprise risk management.
• Monitor the effectiveness of legal risk mitigation actions and ensure appropriate follow-through.

Legal Portfolio & Matter Management:

• Collate and maintain an integrated view of material Legal matters, monitoring their status, materiality, financial exposure, strategic importance, dependencies and escalation requirements.
• Develop and implement matter-management standards, reporting requirements and escalation thresholds approved by the General Counsel.
• Review material matters with the relevant Senior Legal Advisor and recommend escalation or executive intervention to the General Counsel where required.
• Coordinate cross-functional matters involving multiple Legal disciplines.
• Ensure appropriate hand-offs and collaboration between specialist Legal portfolios.
• Monitor dependencies, deadlines and critical decisions associated with material Legal matters.

Legal Financial & External Counsel Management:

• Administer approved external counsel panels, briefing protocols, matter budgets, fee arrangements and expenditure controls.
• Manage the Legal Department's annual operating budget in alignment with approved business plans and priorities.
• Monitor Legal expenditure against approved budgets and identify material variances.
• Oversee external legal spend, including panel arrangements, matter budgets, fee estimates, fee caps and expenditure trends.
• Monitor legal spend by portfolio, matter type and external service provider to support resource and sourcing decisions.
• Monitor external counsel expenditure and service delivery and report material performance, quality or risk concerns to the General Counsel.
• Identify opportunities for legal cost optimisation without compromising legal quality, professional independence or appropriate risk coverage.
• Report material Legal expenditure, trends and variances to the General Counsel.
• Support the General Counsel in the selection, appointment and management of external legal advisers.

Legal Operations, Process & Technology:

• Drive continuous improvement in Legal processes, operating models, workflows and service delivery. 
• Identify opportunities to improve efficiency, consistency and transparency.
• Promote effective use of legal technology, contract lifecycle management, matter-management, reporting and knowledge-management systems.
• Establish Legal dashboards and management information.
• Provide senior legal advice on material or complex matters within delegated areas of responsibility and support the General Counsel on strategically significant matters.
• Use Legal data and trends to identify recurring risks, workload pressures, service-delivery issues and improvement opportunities.
• Lead or support Legal transformation initiatives.
• Ensure Legal processes, templates, precedents and knowledge resources are maintained and accessible.

People Leadership and Capability:

• Lead, coach and develop the Senior Legal Advisor team.
• Establish individual and team performance objectives, aligned with the objectives and priorities approved by the General Counsel.
• Identify specialist capability gaps and implement development, sourcing or external support strategies.
• Develop succession and capability-development recommendations for consideration by the General Counsel.
• Establish mentoring, coaching and knowledge-sharing mechanisms.
• Promote continuous professional development.
• Build a culture of professional integrity, accountability, collaboration and sound judgement.
• Identify future Legal leadership capability and recommend appropriate career development pathways.

Senior Legal Advisory:

• Provide senior legal advice on material or complex matters within delegated areas of responsibility and support the General Counsel on strategically significant matters.
• Oversee or support legal advice on significant commercial arrangements, transactions and legal risk
  matters, escalating matters requiring executive or Board-level advice to the General Counsel.
• Provide senior legal guidance where matters require escalation or executive intervention.
• Review material matters prepared by Senior Legal Advisors where appropriate.
• Recommend appropriate specialist legal escalation and external legal support to the General Counsel.
• Act as a senior escalation point for complex or sensitive legal matters.
• Coordinate Legal input into significant strategic projects, business initiatives and operational changes
  under the direction of the General Counsel.

Governance & Executive Support:

• Develop and implement Legal reporting frameworks and management information requirements approved by the General Counsel to support effective oversight and decision-making.
• Consolidate and present material Legal risks, matters, trends, exposures and performance indicators to the General Counsel.
• Prepare or coordinate Legal briefing material for review by the General Counsel and submission to executive management and relevant governance forums.
• Coordinate with the Company Secretary, Risk, Compliance, Finance, People & Culture and other control functions on matters requiring integrated legal and governance input. Ensure material Legal matters are appropriately escalated and reported through established governance channels.
• Support the General Counsel in preparing Legal updates and reports for executive and governance forums.

Competencies

• Advanced knowledge of commercial, corporate, regulatory, litigation, governance and risk-related legal principles, with broad understanding of the legal requirements applicable to a complex, regulated business
• Cognitive skills
• Business acumen
• Communication skills
• Interpersonal skills
• Quality orientation
• Self-management skills
• Leadership & management skills
• Technical skills - Legal research, contract review and negotiation, legal risk assessment, matter management, legal reporting, legal technology and data-driven Legal operations

Special conditions of employment

• South African citizen
• MIE, clear criminal and credit
• Driver’s license and/or own reliable transport
• Occasional traveling
• May be required to work outside normal office hours where material business, regulatory, transaction or
  litigation deadlines require it
• Employment is subject to Dis-Chem policies, applicable vetting requirements and ongoing compliance with confidentiality, conflicts and professional obligations

Remuneration and benefits

• Market-related salary
• Medical aid
• Provident fund
• Staff account

Closing Date 06 November 2026