Fragrance Senior Legal Counsel

Unilever’s Business Operations (UBO) organisation is a global operation consisting of, among other key areas: 

Within the supply chain over 250 factories and over 400 warehouses, procuring billions of euros of goods and services and delivering over 4.5bn cases of products across more than 210,000 locations. Supply chain is a critical lever to Unilever’s business fundamentals, with an increasing emphasis on the effective use of third-party manufacturers to manufacture our products.  

The end-to-end value supply chain controls most of Unilever’s inventory, manages a majority of Unilever’s costs and physical assets, and sets the foundation to generate revenue through delivering product availability.   

Market-leading fund, technology, data management and related projects connected within the tracing, reduction and tracking of GHG usage and the sustainable-sourcing and tracing of a wide range of commodities, including palm, soy, cocoa and diary.  

Unilever’s supply chain is an industry leader in responsible and sustainable sourcing (SUSO), with the Supply Chain responsible for bringing to life Unilever’s Responsible Sourcing Policy in all areas.  

Within the UniOps function, Unilever purchases several EUR Bn a year of software and technology services, including cutting edge deals in the areas of digital mapping and sustainability tracing blockchain.  

The Customer Operations teams, which manage the global distribution of our products, including the fast-growing areas of supply chain and direct-to-customer e-commerce, including outsourcing of some supply chain operations functions and complex logistics projects.  

Within the Commodity Risk Management (CRM) team within UAPL, hedges EUR 5 to 7 billion of commodity price exposures per year. 

These areas are supported by a specialist, lean global legal team business partners, called the Unilever Business Operations (UBO) Legal Team located in Singapore, London, Rotterdam, Bangalore, New York, South Africa, Sao Paolo and Barcelona.  

The advertised position is within that global team, based in London, co-locating with multiple other senior Unilever legal team members, and reporting to the GC UBO, based in London. 

You will be, closely supported by a multi-tiered system of internal and external drafting and negotiation supports, including contract lawyers, legal services insourcing and outsourcing and, where complexity necessitates, outside law firms.  

This is a level 2B (Senior Counsel) role, and as such comes with significant scopes of responsibility. 

This job includes the management and supervision of external and internal legal supports, and in large part the daily work concerns supervision of such work and management of matters of a complexity or internal sensitivity that cannot be fully outsourced. 

Where you will fit in: 

• Member of the global UBO Legal team. 

• Primary legal adviser (GC) to Unilever’s new fragrances design business, including acting as GC to the board of directors to a new company being created (as a 100% group subsidiary) for such business.

• Reporting to the GC UBO (global).  

• Mentoring of junior colleagues within the Unilever Powerhouse legal team in Barcelona and Bangalore. 

• You will have access to multiple in-house FTE junior and mid-level legal supports and also, as complexity dictates, to law firms. 

• Interfacing regularly with the fragrances purchasing and fragrances operations within Unilever.  

• Member of the broader global legal function, cooperating as needed for the scope of this role 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 , within our hybrid flexible working policies and guidelines. 

• 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. 

We are aware that some of these work scope areas are specialist in nature.  Whilst we welcome applicants with wide and relevant expertise, you should still apply if fragrances development or sale/licensing is an area in which you will need ramp-up support from our subject matter expertise business partners.  

• Has an academic degree in law and a current bar qualification in England & Wales, with at least 8+ years of experience in legal advisory and drafting work, a minimum of 4 having been spent in a law firm.  

• Is comfortable, with low to moderate 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. Law firm training in drafting and agreement analysis will be . 

• Experience in corporate counsel work, contract manufacturing / third party manufacturing and/or materials procurement will be useful for this role. 

• Experience in fine chemicals, chemicals procurement, fragrances and/or flavours will be useful for this role. 

• Has a wide experience of multiple disciplines, including complex contracting, claims, litigation management, funds, finance, capex, and IP. Experience of leadership and supervision of both non-direct reports and supporting resources will be useful for this role. 

• Has experience of advising senior stakeholders and their leadership teams. 

• Has a range of experience of supporting procurement/buying, and licensing teams. 

• Has a fluent command of the English language i.e., for drafting and legal advisory work. 

• 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. 

The job scope for this role is inherently dynamic and varied, responding as needed to the major events of the day. 

Key Interfaces: 

Within Legal –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: 

• The senior officers of the new business. 

• Personal Care R&D team. 

• Beauty and Wellness R&D Team. 

• Home Care R&D Team. 

• Global fragrances purchasing team.