HOD: Legal Services at SITA SOC (Ltd)

Purpose of the Job:

• To lead and manage the Legal Services function by providing strategic legal advice, ensuring legal and regulatory compliance, managing litigation and contractual risk, protecting SITA’s intellectual property and organisational interests, and enabling sound governance and decision-making by Executive Management and business units.

Key Responsibility Areas:

• Lead the provision of strategic and professional legal advisory services to support legally sound decisionmaking across SITA’s governance, executive, commercial, and operational structures.
• Manage legal governance, compliance, and regulatory risk by developing appropriate legal controls, advising on applicable legislative and governance frameworks, and ensuring that SITA identifies, mitigates, and manages legal and regulatory exposure across the organisation.
• Oversee contract drafting, review, and legal vetting by ensuring that all contracts, service level agreements, memoranda of understanding, commercial agreements, and legal documents are legally sound, protect SITA’s interests, and comply with applicable legislation, policies and delegations of authority.
• Manage litigation, disputes, and claims by overseeing legal proceedings, developing appropriate litigation strategies, managing external legal service providers, and implementing preventative measures to reduce
• SITA’s exposure to claims, disputes, penalties, and legal risk.
• Protect intellectual property and organisational legal interests by overseeing the registration, monitoring, and enforcement of SITA’s intellectual property rights, advising on ownership, licensing and infringement risks, and ensuring that innovations, software assets and proprietary information are legally protected.
• Support public procurement, ICT and technology-related legal matters by providing legal advice on procurement processes, supplier contracts, software licensing, data protection, cybersecurity, digital services and strategic technology projects to ensure legally sound, fair, transparent and compliant transactions.
• Lead policy review and legal alignment by guiding the review, development and implementation of organisational policies, frameworks, procedures and guidelines to ensure consistency, enforceability and compliance with applicable legislation and governance requirements.
• Lead and manage human resources by ensuring effective workforce planning, performance management, capability development, employee engagement, resource allocation, budget control and alignment with SITA’s strategic priorities.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Minimum: LLB degree or equivalent legal qualification. Admitted as an attorney or advocate. Registration or membership with a relevant legal professional body will be advantageous.
• Experience: Admitted attorney or advocate with at least 10 years’ post-admission corporate, commercial or public sector legal experience, including a minimum of 4 years’ senior management experience.
• Experience must include extensive contract law / law of contracts, contract drafting, contract negotiation, contract risk management, legal advisory services, litigation management, regulatory compliance, corporate governance, public procurement support, labour law, legal risk management and stakeholder advisory at executive level.

Technical Competencies:

• Foundational & Regulatory Legislation: The constitution of RSA, Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014 and Code of Conduct for Legal Practitioners.
• General Litigation and Procedural Law: Superior Courts Act, Magistrate Courts Act, Criminal Procedure Act, Law of Evidence Amendment Act.
• Commercial, Corporate & Property Law: Extensive knowledge of contract law / law of contracts, Companies Act, Insolvency Act, etc.
• Labour Law: Labour Relations Act, BCEA, Employment Equity Act, Occupational Health and Safety Act, Skills Development Act, Codes of Good Practice.
• Administrative law: Promotion of Access to information Act, Protection of Personal Information Act, Public Procurement.
• Financial Legislation: PFMA, Treasury Regulations, Tax law, Income Tax, SARS directives financial management, Arbitration Public procurement Drafting of legal documents Intellectual property knowledge.
• ICT Related legal: ICT law, cybersecurity, software licensing, intellectual property.
• General Knowledge: The role also requires knowledge of legal research, dispute resolution, arbitration, and litigation, drafting of legal opinions, policy review, legislative interpretation, legal risk management, people management, stakeholder management, and the management of external legal service providers.
• Personal Attributes: Agility, Collaboration, Customer Centricity, Empathy, Integrity, and Innovation

Deadline:21st May,2026