Associate General Counsel

Company DescriptionJohn Crane a business of Smiths Group is a global leader in mission-critical flow control solutions for energy and process industries that enable efficient and sustainable operations Our products include mechanical seals and systems couplings bearings filtration systems and predictive digital monitoring technologies We have a global network of more than 200 sites in over 50 countries and employ more than 6 000 people worldwide We partner with our customers to help them keep their operations safe reduce downtime improve efficiency and meet the latest environmental standards John Crane is part of Smiths Group For over 170 years Smiths has been pioneering progress by engineering for a better future We serve millions of people every year helping to create a safer more efficient productive and better-connected world across four global markets energy security defence space aerospace and general industrial Listed on the London Stock Exchange Smiths employs approximately 16 000 colleagues in over 50 countries This is a senior in-house legal role responsible for leading the provision of all cross jurisdictional and cross functional legal advice to support John Crane across APAC except for China Hong Kong and Taiwan with a primary focus on drafting and negotiation of our high value complex customer contracts for our sales teams across the region The Legal Director APAC will be a visible presence across all APAC countries within which John Crane operates and will act as an ambassador to promote Smiths Group Leadership Behaviors The Legal Director APAC is a key member of the JC legal team and will be expected to be fully involved in not only the delivery of the John Crane Legal service in APAC but supporting the General Counsel John Crane with the setting execution and delivery of financial year objectives for each of John Crane and Smiths Group The successful candidate for this role MUST have extensive experience of i drafting high value complex sale side agreements ii leading the negotiation of legal and commercial areas of risk with support from other stakeholders iii distilling summarizing key areas of risk on a priority basis in order to escalate and seek approval for waivers of risk from senior executives across multiple functions The ideal candidate for this role will have a Digital Technology background particularly experience negotiating and drafting SaaS contracts and would be comfortably being primarily responsible for supporting the General Counsel John Crane with the negotiation and drafting of digital supplier and customer contracts and templates to support John Crane s Digital agenda Reporting to the General Counsel John Crane the Legal Director APAC will be a primary contact for very senior stakeholders within the whole of the APAC region within John Crane The ability to rapidly build personal credibility and ensure effective stakeholder management across the group is critical to this role Change management skills leadership and experience will also be key to helping the General Counsel John Crane to role out key initiatives and ways of working across the APAC region The Legal Director APAC will also act as an ambassador for Smiths Group Leadership Behaviors working closely with the Group Ethics Compliance Team and other Smiths Group Legal team colleagues to manage ethics and compliance related issues Responsible for providing strategic corporate and commercial legal advice across John Crane APAC supporting on all legal matters including M A with support from CoE commercial technology data protection real estate and compliance related matters Leveraging support of CoE colleagues as required Primary responsibility will be supporting JC colleagues to negotiate and draft high value complex sale-side contracts with John Crane customers across the region Additional responsibility to support Procurement colleagues across the region who manage John Crane supply chain Additional responsibility to support John Crane Digital Team based in UK and US with drafting of Digital supply and customer contracts including for SaaS and all template agreements Responsible for supporting SVP and GC Ethics Compliance General Counsel India and General Counsel APAC to manage and oversee all ethics and compliance related issues in the region Prime contact for key John Crane stakeholders including portfolio managers GMs and HRBPs for regions in scope in addition to other senior stakeholders Negotiation of key contracts with JC customers partners and suppliers and management of legal issues arising from those contracts Oversight of agents and distributor contracts with support of JC Contracts Manager Legal Support for root cause analysis reviews in the event of customer quality issues Familiarity with data protection and GDPR compliance related issues to the extent relevant to drafting and negotiation of digital and technology contracts With support of Group E C provide legal support to Trade Compliance team to manage operational impact of sanctions on JC Business partnering with key stakeholders on blue sky thinking to develop legal models aligned to commercialization of new products With the support of colleagues in Group E C manage ESG related responses to customer questionnaires Compliance and other legal training for JC colleagues in sales and other functions You should note that your title and job description are not exhaustive and the Company may require you from time to time to undertake other reasonable tasks within your capacity QualificationsRequired Law School Bachelor s Degree Qualified Law A qualified lawyer from an accredited law school in APAC 1 Private practice experience in a corporate or commercial practice group within a law firm covering both local and international matters 2 Corporate Commercial experience in a senior in-house role 3 Extensive commercial contracting experience - specifically negotiation of high value complex sale-side contracts 4 Risk review experience - i e escalation of risk issues to senior executive stakeholders Digital Technology Software Legal experience - specifically drafting of supplier and or customer Digital contracts especially for SaaS Oil gas sector experience EU data protection experience Comments English - Fluent written spoke - must be able to draft and negotiate complex contracts in English Technical Knowledge and Skillsxc2xb7 Strong technical drafting skills with demonstrable experience of drafting a variety of corporate and commercial agreements documents particularly seller focused agreements for both products and services xc2xb7 Wide negotiation skills experience Specifically experience of negotiating high value high risk commercial contracts with vendors and customers xc2xb7 Strong Digital Technology skills particularly with negotiation and drafting of SaaS and technology contracts xc2xb7 Training and awareness experience Specifically experience of producing training materials to raise awareness of core legal principles among colleagues and stakeholders xc2xb7 Wide experience in managing the requirement for targeted legal advice on multi-jurisdictional projects to include project management of global projects to solve legal business challenges and engage stakeholders xc2xb7 Experience of general counsel partnering - demonstrable experience of managing a variety of legal matters including M A corporate real estate IT and commercial data protection leveraging external counsel to support the provision of timely pragmatic advice across a variety of practice areas Other Skills Experiences xc2xb7 Proven track record of thought leadership to influence business outcomes aligned to mitigation of legal risk to support new business opportunities xc2xb7 Change Management - proven effectiveness at driving change with strong engagement of others to contribute to successful execution xc2xb7 Proven Programme Management capability - ability to coordinate and manage a series of complex workstreams within an overarching programme of works using cross-divisional and cross-functional resources xc2xb7 Strong collaboration and influencing skills to mobilise senior colleagues outside and inside the legal function in support of global people projects xc2xb7 Continuous Improvement mindset in relation to delivery of legal service xc2xb7 Proven Programme Management capability - ability to coordinate and manage a series of complex workstreams within an overarching programme of works using cross-divisional and cross-functional resourcesAdditional InformationWith colleagues stretching across the globe we are proud of our diversity To foster inclusivity we run employee resource groups ERGs to provide a safe space for employees to connect and support each other Our cross-business ERGs include Veterans Pride Network Black Employee Network Women Work Network and Neurodiversity Across our company we recognize excellence culminating in the Smiths Excellence Awards our annual celebration of the most extraordinary activities people and projects that best showcase our strengths and help drive our business forward We announce these on our annual Smiths Day a global celebration of Smiths around our network Join us for a great career with competitive compensation and benefits while helping engineer a better future We believe that different perspectives and backgrounds are what make a company flourish All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment regardless of race colour religion sex sexual orientation gender identity national origin economic status disability age or any other legally protected characteristics We are proud to be an inclusive company with values grounded in equality and ethics where we celebrate support and embrace diversity At no time during the hiring process will Smiths Group nor any of our recruitment partners ever request payment to enable participation - including but not limited to interviews or testing Avoid fraudulent requests by applying jobs directly through our career s website