Legal Counsel Business Operations Legal Team – Personal Care / LATAM

Work Level: 3X

JOB LOCATION: Bosques, México City

RELOCATION TERMS: Local Terms only.

Business Context

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.

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.

Within the UniOps function, Unilever purchases several EUR Bn a year of software and technology services, including cutting edge deals.

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, UBO hedges several billion Euros 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 London, Rotterdam, New Jersey, Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Barcelona.

UBO Legal team is supported by a system of internal issues management, contracting drafting and negotiation supports, including legal hub lawyers (our Powerhouses), contract lawyers, GenAI contracting capabilities and, where complexity necessitates, outside law firms.

This is a level 3 (legal director) 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.

• Mentoring of junior colleagues in the Unilever Powerhouse legal team.

• Reporting to the GC UBO and dotted reporting to the Personal Care GC (both based in London).

• You will have in-house legal support, and as complexity dictates, to law firms.

• Business partner with the Personal Care Supply Chain LT, members of the Procurement global LT (UPLT), and member of the Personal Care Legal LT.

• Business partner with LATAM procurement, supply chain and customer operations (logistics) colleagues in LATAM, and their country-specific legal teams.

• Member of the broader global legal function, cooperating with country lawyers, BG GCs, UBO network lawyers, BI and sanctions/export control expertise colleagues, patent/IP specialists, competition law specialists, IP specialists and other legal colleagues and internal tax, finance and insurance experts.

• Attendance in a Unilever office will be required within our flexible working policies and guidelines.

What you will do – the Scopes of Work:

• You will support primarily the teams listed above, as legal business partner, and leveraging inhouse and external legal team supports, including supporting the following work areas:

• As Personal Care UBO Legal business partner:

This work involves supporting the many facets of the Personal Care business group’s supply chain and related needs across the board, including CAPEX projects and many projects that overlap with the other portfolios and business groups e.g. work in carbon reduction new materials projects, contract manufacturing and new procurement models.

• As UBO Legal business partner to the LATAM region and also global Procurement:

As legal business partner, you will be responsible for the following:

• LATAM-focused logistics and warehouse services projects and regional logistics supply contracts, and outsourcing deals for supply chain processes;
• LATAM -focused contract manufacturing contracts, the termination of existing contract manufacturing relationships;
• LATAM capex (e.g., new or extended factories);
• LATAM focused GHG and sustainability initiatives;
• LATAM Renewable energy / renewable power projects.
• 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.
• Supporting members of the global Procurement leadership team on a project by project basis – as aligned with GC UBO

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, 15+ years of experience in legal advisory and drafting work.

• Has a wide experience of commercial law disciplines, including complex contracting, claims (non-contentious), sustainability, capex and policy-writing/review.
• Has experience of advising senior stakeholders and their leadership teams.
• Has experience leveraging digital/GenAI solutions to drive productivity.

• Has a range of experience of supporting procurement/buying teams.
• Can successfully delegate to and supervise work undertaken by others through hubs.
• Is fluent in English (+ Spanish and/or Portuguese) language i.e., for drafting and legal advisory work.
• Provides, appropriate clear hands-on, business-oriented support for the scopes of work and identifies legal risks and helps the business navigate them, providing creative but legally compliant solutions.
• Creates clear risk analysis and guidance for a non-legal audience.
• Some understanding of commodity buying is preferred.
• Has sound cross-cultural skills, emotional maturity. 
• Has a strong ability to handle multiple assignments and manage major projects to successful completion. 
• 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.
• Has a strong ability to work with both colleagues and internal clients across multiple timezones and jurisdictions.

The job scope for this role is inherently dynamic and varied, responding as needed to the major events of the day e.g., conflicts, pandemics, internal restructuring.

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