Legal Counsel, West Africa at Mondelez International LLC

Mondelez International, Inc. empowers people to snack right in over 160 countries around the world. We’re leading the future of snacking with iconic brands such as Oreo, belVita and LU biscuits; Cadbury Dairy Milk, Cadbury Bournvita, TomTom, Cloret, and Trident gum.  Our 90,000+ colleagues around the world are key to the success of our business. Great people and great brands. That’s who we are.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Legal Counsel, West Africa

Job Requisition ID: R-72376
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Job Type: Full time

Description

• Are You Ready to Make It Happen at Mondelēz International?
• Join our Mission to Lead the Future of Snacking. Make It Matter.
• 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).

Role Purpose

• To protect the company against legal risk by providing quality legal services and to ensure compliance with law and company policy. 
• The role is commercially focused with an emphasis on the drafting and vetting of agreements, negotiating transactions, and managing disputes. 
• In addition, it includes Supply Chain, Corporate Governance & Compliance, IP, Consumer Protection, Labour and dispute management work. The successful candidate will act as a trusted legal advisor across all functions of the business.

Key Responsibilities

• Support Chief Counsel as a business partner in Managing and advising on legal and regulatory issues related for Mondelez’s business in West Africa.
• Provide legal secretarial support to the legal entities within the designated West African Markets.
• Contract Administration - inputting into a log, monitoring /tracking Contracts- Drafting, negotiating, amending and reviewing agreements to ensure that the company’s interests are protected.
• Support Chief Counsel in establishing and maintaining relationship with external counsel, including management of legal matters, billing procedures, levels of service and compliance with MDLZ Outside Counsel procedure & policy.
• Responsible for ensuring the company is compliant with periodical regulatory submissions.
• Provide support to the Company Secretary on Company Secretarial/Registrar matters
• Support the Chief Counsel in providing proactive in-house compliance advice to management and staff on regulatory, reputational and ethical matters, including updates to Board, management and staff on regulatory and compliance developments relevant to 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 or other regulatory and or compliance matters and maintain the training calendar
• Deal with complex legal matters with multiple stakeholders
• Communicate, collaborate and negotiate with external parties (regulators, external counsel, public authorities etc), and creating relationships of trust
• Research and evaluate different risk factors regarding business decisions and operations
• Apply effective risk management techniques and offer proactive advice on possible legal issues/risks.
• Give accurate and timely counsel in a variety of legal topics (labour law, partnerships, international ventures, corporate finance, etc.)
• Collaborate with management to devise efficient defence strategies
• Specify internal governance policies and regularly monitor compliance
• Provide Law office administration support.

Education, Knowledge, Skills & Experience Required

• LLB Qualification with Admission to the Bar (BL). LLM will be advantageous.
• 10-15 years professional corporate commercial experience post admission (either as in- house Legal Counsel or in a Legal Firm)
• Demonstrated experience in Corporate Governance and Compliance. Company Secretarial experience will be advantageous
• Demonstrated influencing and stakeholder management skills
• High degree of professional ethics and integrity
• Sound judgement and ability to analyse situations and information
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of corporate law and procedures
• Full comprehension of the influence of the external environment of a manufacturing organization
• Demonstrated ability to create legal defensive or proactive strategies
• Outstanding communication skills
• Outstanding problem-solving skills
• Ability to work under pressure with tight deadlines
• Maintain Strict confidentiality always.
• The successful incumbent may be exposed to highly confidential information and must adhere to the highest ethics and values always.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.