Legal Counsel: SA 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:

• Act as a strategic business partner, trusted adviser and leader to the organization in all relevant legal issues. Manage and lead to ensure the best advice, solutions and challenges to enable strategic growth initiatives and protect and enhance our assets, reputation and interests. Act as local Compliance Officer, ensuring a consistent and high standard of all Mondelez International’s Global Legal standards and principles throughout the Sub-Saharan African Business Unit. The role is commercially focused with an emphasis on the drafting and vetting of commercial agreements, negotiating transactions and managing complex disputes. In addition, the role covers supply chain manufacturing and logistics, IP, property, consumer protection and HR legal matters.

What extra ingredients you will bring:

• Astute and effective commercial legal thinker and problem solver
• Knowledge of IP law principles and enforcement
• Demonstrated people leadership and management
• High degree of professional ethics and integrity
• Responsive and excellent with stakeholder management
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of corporate law, company law and competition law
• Demonstrated ability to create legal defensive or proactive strategies with good legal drafting skills
• Level 2 thinker with sound judgement and ability to understand analyze factual scenarios and apply relevant legal principles to those scenarios
• Outstanding communication skills and problem-solving skills
• Curious, proactive and energetic personality

Education / Certifications:

• 10 years post-admission corporate commercial experience with at least 3-5 years’ experience in house legal counsel
• The successful candidate will be required to have knowledge of IP laws
• Law Degree and proven experience as legal counsel in business environment.

Job specific requirements:

• Support the business primarily Southern Africa with an expectation to also provide legal support and guidance in other SSA jurisdictions
• Manage and advise on contentious and non-contentious legal and regulatory issues
• Provide company secretarial support to legal entities within AMEA markets
• Liaise with, support and manage external counsel in litigation and/or other matters and act as the ‘translator’ between external counsel and the business
• 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
• Provide clarification on legal language or specifications
• Communicate and negotiate with external parties (regulators, external counsel, public authorities, Mondelez International vendors etc.)
• Research and evaluate different risk factors for business decisions and operations
• Apply effective risk management techniques and offer proactive advice on possible legal issues
• Give accurate and timely counsel to executives in a variety of legal topics (labor law, partnerships, international ventures, corporate finance etc.).
• Collaborate with management to devise efficient defense strategies
• Report timeously, manage and monitor compliance with internal governance policies.