Senior Legal Counsel HQ

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Ideal Standard is a leading manufacturer of bathroom products in Europe and MENA, providing a broad range of branded products for residential and non-residential end-markets in more than 20 countries. We manufacture products for all of the major product categories in the bathroom products market with an annual turnover of around 725 Mio and we believe our comprehensive offering differentiates us from our competitors. We enjoy leading market positions in many of the largest bathroom products markets in Europe and MENA. We sell our products under a series of well-known international and national brands including Ideal Standard, JADO, Porcher, Armitage Shanks, Ceramica Dolomite and Vidima. As of 31 December 2019, we operated 14 manufacturing plants across Europe and in Egypt, and we employ almost 8,700 people across our business.

The role

Ideal Standard International NV (the Company) is seeking to reinforce the Group’s central legal department with a senior legal counsel in support of to the Group’s commercial interests and activities.

The Group seeks to establish a robust and efficient senior function that will provide sound legal support, advice, guidance and safeguards across the business as a true value-add for the Group’s commercial teams.

For that purpose, the Company wants to hire a Senior Legal Counsel who will report to the General Counsel and will lead and manage the Group’s commercial legal matters.

The role will be based in our HQ Zaventem and will require occasional travel to core European markets.

Mission and responsibilities

The candidate will take up a broad and diverse commercial role supporting the businesses’ day-to-day legal needs, mainly in the area of commercial law advice and contracts. The candidate may occasionally be requested to support in other matters in function of the business’ needs. Main interactions will be with the central procurement team and HQ senior management.

The responsibilities include:

• Provide contract support (from initial negotiation to contract execution) on a wide range of commercial contracts, including supply chain, procurement, marketing, IT and customer contracts
• Build and maintain a strong legal compliance framework and program, including in the areas of competition law, anti-bribery/anti-corruption and GDPR
• Overlook and manage the Group’s Intellectual Property portfolio and advise on Group Intellectual Property matters (trademarks, designs, patents) in cooperation with the Corporate Compliance and IP Manager
• Advise on regulatory matters including product quality, labelling and liability matters
• Develop an internal network and support the Group’s commercial, marketing, procurement, manufacturing, finance and treasury (insurance) teams across Europe and the Middle-East
• Monitor and manage all commercial litigation across the Group
• Develop and maintain adequate databases/records of the Group’s commercial contracts and train the commercial teams on roles and responsibilities
• Support in commercial due diligence work as part of M&A transactions
• Explore digitalisation options for the group legal department
• Establish relations with, manage and control the Group’s outside counsels in the commercial law area, their scope of work, fees and performance
• Deliver comprehensive and qualitative advice and reports to and entertain effective legal discussions with the Chief Commercial Officer, the Chief Supply Chain Officer, other members of the Executive Committee and occasionally shareholder representatives
• Follow up on changes in laws and regulations, assess their impact on the Group and recommend frameworks to comply

Essential competencies

• Self-starter, ownership and natural leadership & drive to get things done
• Independent, pragmatic and results-oriented attitude
• Thinking big picture, yet understanding details
• Comfortable to work in a dynamic and at times ambiguous environment
• Open, constructive, flexible, hard worker with good personal balance
• Team player

Skills and experiences

The candidate:

• has a Master’s degree in Law, potentially with an additional degree or specialization in a relevant field
• has a minimum of 10 years professional experience, of which at least 5 years as in-house counsel in a multinational company – experience as outside counsel in a reputable international business law firm prior to becoming an in-house counsel is considered a plus
• can handle any type of commercial legal matter and demonstrates tangible experience in civil, contract, competition, commercial, IP, IT and data protection law
• is a gatekeeper protecting the company while striving for the best commercial result for the company
• has as plus if familiar with an industrial and/or third party manufacturing environment
• has impeccable English language skills. Dutch, French, German and/or Italian (spoken and written) are a plus
• has strong project management skills with natural drive to challenge and able to initiate change
• has the ability to manage and prioritise workload to ensure appropriate controls while driving forward strategic initiatives
• has good interpersonal and communication skills

Interested? We look forward to hearing from you!

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted within 2 weeks of application. All inquiries and applications will be treated with the utmost discretion.

NOTE TO RECRUITMENT AGENCIES: We do NOT accept unsolicited headhunter or agency resumes/CVS. Headhunters and recruitment agencies may NOT submit resumes/CVs through LinkedIn (or any other online platform) or directly to HR, managers and staff members. Ideal Standard is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited CVs or applications and explicitly reserve its right to contact candidates presented in such unsolicited CV or application.