Legal Counsel Operations at British American Tobacco

Your key responsibilities will include:

 Operational/Professional/Business

• Supply to the development and execution of the Legal & Security functional strategy.
• Supervise and interpret the legislative environment, to ensure that the business understands and meets its legal obligations.
• Leverage digital opportunities and platforms for the management, tracking and reporting of the contract life cycle and litigation.
• Maintain, update and rollout the regulatory compliance cycle plan for the Heidelberg tobacco factory.
• Maintain a detailed understanding of upstream, predominantly supplier-side regulatory issues and the regulatory framework in which the business operates and take ownership for the development of informed solutions enabling the business to respond to and deal with regulatory constraints.
• Driving the management of operations, procurement, supply chain and union, factory related employment matters.
• Ensuring efficient management of External Counsel.

Management

• Participate and supply to cross functional business projects and initiatives to assess, monitor, and anticipate potential threats to minimize legal risks and ensure achievement of business objectives.
• Supervise so that proactive legal advice and support is provided on manufacturer’s statutory obligations, labour laws, health and safety at work regulations and leaf growing marketing legislation.
• Draft, negotiate and review contractual documentation and develop as appropriate standard formats to optimise efficiencies within the legal sub-function..
• Optimally, communicate across functions and within the department to keep all collaborators advised and to find solutions for problems of mutual interest.

What are we looking for?

Experience Required

• Proven experience in a private legal practice and ideally an additional demonstrated ability in a corporate environment and competence in providing legal advice to internal stakeholders.
• Strong background in Operations, Logistics and Procurement legal counseling experience with a multi-national or similar scale business in South Africa and ideally in other African markets.
• Detailed knowledge of local substantive and procedural laws relevant to areas of responsibility e.g. commercial law, labour laws, land laws, factory/manufacturing regulations, EHS legislation, etc.
• Strong negotiation, written and verbal communications skills.
• Ability to act on their own initiative, lead others and work well with peers and senior management.

Skills Required

Innovation

• Ability to apply strong strategic, analytical skills and good judgment.
• Continually optimise and build improved systems and work process to drive efficiency and reduce costs.

Leadership Skills

• Implement and achieve the strategic plans and objectives
• Powerful and effective communication to the business on the relevance and strategic business importance of the area of responsibility of this role.
• Identify new initiatives and proposals in line with the business strategy and values to ensure legal operates at the heart of the business and as effective risk managers and business partners.
• Continuously develop technical and managerial skills as identified and agreed in personal development plan.
• Build and maintain good relationships with authorities in the legal field.
• Map out internal and external partners and build those relationships to optimise effectiveness of legal actions.

Education / Qualifications / Certifications Required

• A recognized legal qualification