Senior Legal Counsel

Job Description:

The Senior Counsel is a business-oriented generalist legal advisor who will support Mars Pet Nutrition North America and additional businesses of Mars Fishcare Horsecare and/or PrettyLitter across a broad range of functions including Marketing Sales Corporate Affairs Regulatory Quality and Commercial and will report to the Associate General Counsel Pet Nutrition North America. This role requires comfort operating across multiple subject areas and business functions and managing complexity to help the business move forward in a practical compliant and commercially grounded way.

Working in a highly collaborative manner with the various business functions and the broader Mars legal teams (e.g. Food Law Sustainability Ethics & Compliance Corporate and Privacy) the Senior Counsel is accountable for delivering holistic legal support to enable key business growth initiatives while managing legal risks and protecting the Mars Pet Nutrition brands and reputation. The role is North America focused with the potential to work on projects that scale to other Senior Counsel will be a highly skilled lawyer with an excellent track record of creating collaborative relationships across a complex matrixed organization. The successful candidate will be an effective and influential business partner with the ability to lead matters and projects independently while exercising sound judgment and excellent business partnership.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as a legal lead for teams across Marketing Sales Quality Regulatory Commercial Supply and Corporate Affairs

• Provide practicaltimelylegal advice that balances risk management with businessobjectivesin a fast-paced matrixed environment

• Manage sensitive and fast-moving issues that require calm judgment clear communication and cross-functional coordination

• Collaborate closely with business and other Mars legal teams (e.g. Food Law Ethics & Compliance Privacy Marketing & Innovation Sustainability Corporate) to support initiatives spanning multiple functional areas deliver integrated business-focused legal advice and manage complex litigation and compliance matters

• Partner with Food Law Regulatory Marketing Sales and Commercial teams to develop and implement effective marketing and advertising to drive brand sales

• Partner with appropriate teams across Mars to secure needed support and expertise in connection with technology and personal data collection processing and use

• Contribute to development of practical guidance playbooks and standards that improve consistency and efficiency for business stakeholders

• Collaborate and partner with regional and cross-segment counterparts across the Mars enterprise to ensure a consistent and aligned One Mars approach on key matters and issues

• Collaborate and partner with the regional business stakeholders and relevant members of the Mars Petcare legal team for global projects

Required Skills Capabilities and Experience

• J.D. from an accredited law school with active license to practice law in at least one US jurisdiction

• 8-10 years of relevant legal experience ideally in both a well-respected law firm and in-house for a successful and complex company

• Experience in the consumer-packaged goods sector ideally in food/beverage

• Broad legal experience supporting marketing advertising commercial and regulatory affairs on food law and procurement issues including drafting and negotiating a variety of agreements with a solid understanding of the associated regulatory environment (FDA FTC) as well as competition law data privacy and intellectual property issues

• Experience managing complex litigation and/or compliance matters

• Creative agile thinker with an entrepreneurial solutions-oriented mindset

• Ability to analyze complex legal and policy issues from a commercial perspective

• Practical business-focused approach to legal problem-solving and experience providing counsel to senior business leaders

• Strong communicator and relationship builder who can translate legal issues into clear actionable guidance for varying levels of stakeholders

• Excellent project management skills with the ability to identify what needs to be done and the ownership to drive the work to completion.

• Dependable and flexible team player and collaborator who works to achieve both personal and organization goals with ability to navigate a matrixed organization to deliver results

• Ability to travel as necessary