Head of Legal - Snodland, United Kingdom - South East Water

South East Water

Verified Company

Snodland, United Kingdom

1 week ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

beBee Recruiter

Description

Do you have a track record for providing pragmatic and commercially focused legal advice?

Are you skilled in leading on a diverse range of corporate legal functions and activities?
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We want to be the water company people want to be supplied by and want to work for

This is rare opportunity to take up a pivotal role within our senior leadership team to oversee and manage the legal function within South East Water.

You'll ensure legal compliance across a range of functions and activities, including litigation, commercial contracting, statutory data protection and construction law being core elements.

It's your shrewd judgement and commercial focus that will protect us against risk and provide peers with practical guidance.

You're a qualified solicitor in England and Wales with a minimum of 10 years post qualification experience. Ideally, you'll have proven experience working in a corporate legal capacity within a fast-paced, fast-evolving, and dynamic environment. As a legal expert you inspire trust, build confidence, and can see the bigger picture.

As you'd expect from this role, it offers the chance to make enormous impact business wide, for example, as you work in partnership with our engineering, finance, procurement, IT, and leadership teams to generate enhanced integrity within our internal and external affairs.

That means proven leadership capabilities are essential to hit the group running.

You'll most likely be performing an equivalent role currently, or working as a Senior Lawyer ready for the next step.

A background in or knowledge of utilities, energy, network, or infrastructure is desired e.g., water, gas, electricity, rail or fibre.

So, this is an excellent opportunity to use your strategic mindset, sound judgement and excellent decision-making skills to contribute to the success of our business.

What do you get from work at South East Water?

You'll grow a career with a meaningful purpose. Be you, belong and be valued.

Come to work to be safe, valued and trusted.
We'll encourage you to create and pursue new opportunities for personal growth.
A place to be the real you, build deeper connections and enjoy a sense of belonging.
Be invested in helping us to create a sustainable water supply for now, and in the future.

What will be your key accountabilities?

Organise and manage the outputs of the Company's legal function using and developing existing inhouse personnel and appropriate external resource with the focus on achieving resilient, commercial, and practicable legal advice.
Be recognised as the company's legal expert having a broad and deep knowledge of all aspects of law that impact the Company.
Develop and deliver appropriate guidance and training on legal matters as may be required across the Company.
Responsible for the company's statutory Data Protection, being responsible for GDPR compliance and strategy and ensuring that the workforce and supply chain understands GDPR requirements, acts accordingly and that risk is appropriately managed. Responsible for holding information on data breaches and reporting notifiable breaches to the Information Commissioner.
Oversee the delivery of all contracts across a wide range of activities (for example property, construction, IT, commercial, regulated, and environmental) and suppliers (procurement). The postholder will have a strong and deep knowledge of construction and commercial contracts and will be heavily involved in the drafting and negotiation of multimillion pound, multi year contracts.
Complete regular reports and reports directly to the Company executive and Board on high level legal issues, ensuring a high quality of presentation. There is also a requirement to report all statutory reporting duties that are pertinent to the legal function.
Undertake regular highlevel legal risk analysis on a wide range of organisational activity and provide advice accordingly to include forward planning for changes in law.
Act as the Lead on Modern Slavery Compliance; act as the Anti-Bribery Officer and manage the Environmental Information Requests work stream.
Ensure that staff in the legal function have the necessary certification and training to undertake their roles, maintaining records of CPD undertaken. Manage the Legal budget.
Oversee and manage the Company's relationships with external law firms providing general and specialist legal advice to South East Water, ensuring best practice is followed and maximising value for money.
Be a key partner and contributor to the organisation's Corporate Security Steering Group
Be part of the Company's senior management team to contribute to the Company's leadership team and ensuring that the Company's leaders act with constant consideration of legal matters, and that those leaders have the knowledge of legal issues appropriate to their role.

What will you bring to this role?