Where you will fit in:
- Member of the global UBO Legal team and the global Home Care Legal team.
- Mentoring of junior colleagues within the Unilever Powerhouse legal team in Bangalore.
- Day to day reporting to the Business Operations GC (Legal Director) Home Care Products / SEAA / Asia/Natural Materials Global Procurement who will also provide daily supervision and expertise training, with functional reporting being to the Group General Counsel for Home Care.
- You will have multiple in-house FTE junior and mid-level legal supports, and also access where needed to a pool of mature contractors for bespoke work, and also, as complexity dictates, to law firms.
- Supporting the Business Operations GC in business partnering with the Natural Materials global procurement team and Home Care Business Group for product supply and procurement matters globally.
- Leading business partnering with SEAA procurement, supply chain and customer operations (logistics) colleagues in SEAA, and their country-specific legal teams.
- Offshore business partner with the Unilever Oleochemical Indonesia leadership team, in particular to support offshore sales legal matters and capex. Unilever Oleochemical Indonesia is a large palm oil refiner owned by Unilever, which refined palm oil into many of the materials needed for personal care products.
- Member of the broader global legal function, cooperating with: UBO Group lawyer networks, country lawyers, BG GCs, UBO network lawyers, patent/IP specialists, competition law specialists, IP specialists and other legal colleagues and internal tax, finance and insurance experts.
- Some attendance in a local Unilever office will be required, within our hybrid flexible working policies and guidelines.
What you will do – the Scopes of Work:
- You will support primarily the teams listed above, as a legal business partner, and leveraging in-house and external legal team supports, including supporting the following work areas:
As Senior Counsel for the supply chain and product officer business partner to the Home Care business group:
This work involves supporting the many facets of the global Home Care business group’s supply chain and related needs, including many projects that overlap with the other portfolios e.g., work in carbon reduction new materials projects, work on new fragrances business models. It also involves work on contract manufacturing and new procurement models and major deals, and unique areas of business such as air and water purifier businesses. You will here support the global work of the reporting line GC.
As Senior Counsel for the global Natural Materials procurement portfolio:
Support the line manager GC as legal oversight for global natural materials, including commodities, soft oils (palm, soy) and sustainable replacement oils/detergents materials procurement deals (business partners primarily located across Europe and Asia) Unilever is the single largest private buyer of palm kernel oil, and therefore this work ties into the support for Unilever’s palm oil refinery, Unilever Oleochemical Indonesia (please see below). This area of work includes cutting-edge deals for the development and then bulk purchase of new, low impact materials such as rhamnolipids;
As a legal business partner to the Global Flavors and Fragrances procurement team:
Support the line manager GC as legal oversight for this group, which sits within the global Natural Materials procurement portfolio and promotes industry-leading projects for the development and procurement of new fragrances, and the industry rollout of new business models (business partners predominantly located in the UK, Switzerland and Rotterdam).
As offshore senior legal business partner to Unilever Oleochemical Indonesia:
This role falls into three parts:
- occasional support for the offshore sales activities of Unilever Oleochemical Indonesia to non-Unilever customers, guiding a locally-based counsel;
- occasional support for the large-scale palm oil procurement needed as feedstock for Unilever Oleochemical Indonesia, led by the Natural Materials procurement portfolio; and
- support for one-off projects, including capex expansions of the plant, guiding a locally-based counsel and overseeing external counsel supports.
- As offshore legal business partner to the SEAA region: As offshore senior legal business partner, you will supervise and lead the following within SEAA:
- logistics and warehouse services projects and regional logistics supply contracts, and outsourcing deals for supply chain processes;
- contract manufacturing contracts, the termination of existing contract manufacturing relationships;
- capex (e.g., new or extended factories, laboratories or offices, equipment orders, engineering services orders);
- asset light (factory sale and long-term service agreement) deals;
- Renewable energy / renewable power projects (capex, PPAs etc.) in SEAA and providing global level guidance on this area;
- International sales of materials and / or goods contracts;
- on an occasional basis, management of claims and litigation for supply chain matters within the work scopes above; and
- on an occasional basis, work of the types above in other areas of the world.
In this role, your responsibilities will include that you:
- Provide leadership team support and business counselling;
- Provide scoping of work instructions;
- Supervision of drafting and analysis for legal matters;
- Provision of advice and management of contract negotiations, reviews and drafting;
- Identify legal risks and help the business to navigate them, providing creative but legally-compliant solutions;
- Provide concise guidance and advice on escalated legal and risk issues;
- Create clear risk analysis and guidance for a non-legal audience; and
- Provide clear instructions to external and internal legal service providers, contract support lawyers and law firms.
Success factors: The successful candidate will be a person who:
- Has an academic degree in law and a current bar qualification in any relevant jurisdiction, with at least 10+ years of experience in legal advisory and drafting work.
- Is comfortable, with low levels of escalation of queries and limited supervision of written work product, with the benefit of the internal and external legal supports noted above, to instruct the drafting of, reviewing and redrafting as needed, through to completion, a wide range of medium and complex contracts and matters within the Scopes of Work.
- Experience in contract manufacturing / third party manufacturing will be particularly useful for this role.
- Has a wide experience of multiple disciplines, including complex contracting, claims, litigation management, funds, finance, capex and policy-writing/review. Experience of leadership and supervision of both direct and non-direct reports and supporting resources.
- Has experience of advising senior stakeholders and their leadership teams.
- Has a range of experience of supporting procurement/buying teams.
- Has a fluent command of the English language i.e., for drafting and legal advisory work.
- Preferably, has a personal passion for Sustainable Sourcing and ESG matters, and experience in advising on the same.
- Has experience of drafting and reviewing complex funding, technology and finance contracts.
- Some understanding of commodity buying is preferred, and in particular as regards one or more of: palm, caustic soda, alcohols, oleochemicals and soy.
- Has sound cross-cultural skills, emotional maturity, ability conduct international business.
- Is self-motivated.
- Has the ability to argue with conviction points at-table.
- Has strong mental agility, and a mental willingness to learn and understand unfamiliar areas of work.
- Has a willingness to work a flexible working day, since some early-start and evening telephone calls (from home) will sometimes be needed for effective communication with global team members and global business partners.
Key Interfaces:
- Within Legal – GC (director) Home Care Products / SEAA / Natural Materials Procurement, GC UBO, other Business Operations senior counsels globally, Home Care and other Business Unit Senior Counsels, central expertise team lawyers (e.g., IP, competition law), the Corporate and Transactions legal team and R&D/Patents specialists. The Home Care GC group and their BU counsels will each be a key interface.
- Within the Business – The direct client interfaces will predominantly be within the following areas:
- Home Care contract manufacturing team and product officer team (UK based);
- The VP leading the Natural Materials procurement portfolio, and the members of his leadership team (UK based);
- Global capex procurement team (India based);
- UOI procurement leads (Indonesia-based); and
- SEAA Customer Operations (including logistics) and procurement teams, supply chain teams and procurement teams (including Unilever International).