Senior Counsel

Reporting to the General Counsel of the Health & Wellness platform legal organization within the Mars Snacking business. Mars Health & Wellness (H&W) is a collection of Business Units that house fast growing, insurgent brands such as KIND, Nature's Bakery, and Tru Fru. Health & Wellness is investing substantially to maintain the trajectory of our hyper growth Brands and will continue to increase as the result of the platform's acquisitions. In this role, you will serve as the principal lawyer for Nature's Bakery and provide broad commercial legal support and business partnership to the Mars H&W Business Units to enable business growth and global scalability, manage legal risks and protect the brands and reputation. You will find opportunities to facilitate best practices sharing across Business Units while respecting the uniqueness of each.

What you'll do

The Senior Counsel will be a highly skilled lawyer with an excellent track record of creating collaborative relationships across a matrixed organization. The successful candidate will prioritize and manage timely and effective resolution of all legal issues, including operational as well as strategic aspects, with a broad business orientation and commitment to serving as a true business partner. This is an exciting opportunity to use your commercial legal skills to enable H&W to nurture and maintain the growth trajectory of our hyper growth brands at one of the world's leading, global consumer goods companies.

• Serve as the main legal contact and business partner to all operational teams and functions within the Nature's Bakery business unit, ranging across marketing, product innovation, sales, procurement, logistics, manufacturing, quality, finance, digital technology and HR.
• Serve as a center of expertise for the Health & Wellness platform legal team on legal aspects of marketing, advertising, promotions, regulatory, and innovation.
• Identify legal issues and provide legal advice / decision support to achieve business objectives while mitigating legal risks and ensuring compliance with applicable laws and policies.
• Counsel on legal considerations and risk mitigation strategies for business initiatives, commercial transactions, new products and routes to market (e.g., regulatory considerations, supply chain, etc.).
• Draft and advise on a variety of commercial agreements, including, but not limited to marketing, supply, manufacturing, distribution, and services agreements, maintain and improve existing contract templates; develop and refine contract negotiation playbooks.
• Assist in resolving contract disputes and conflicts, including negotiation, mediation, and, if necessary, litigation support, and advise on proactive measures to mitigate litigation risk and exposure.
• Partner with Marketing and the segment Intellectual Property teams to maintain and protect all intellectual property rights.
• Partner with Regulatory, NPD and Marketing to ensure claims support for all product claims, and with Quality on allergen and food safety concerns.
• Closely collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure compliance with relevant laws and to implement continuous process improvement.
• Liaise with government regulatory bodies and administrative agencies on behalf of the company regarding product issues, inspections, and inquiries.
• Educate and train internal teams on legal considerations and compliance requirements.
• Work collaboratively with regional and specialist stakeholders to provide seamless, business-focused, end-to-end legal support and solutions to business partners.
• Collaborate with legal teams, cross-segments and cross-regions, to identify opportunities to centralize knowledge and create scalable processes to increase visibility and expedite communication, alignment, and execution of the legal function.
• Procure and manage outside counsel in an effective and cost-efficient manner where necessary.
• Maintain legal registrations and licensing, including legal entity maintenance matters

You have...

• J.D. from an accredited law school with 6+ years of legal experience required, ideally with experience in both a well-respected law firm and in the legal department of a successful, complex, growth company
• Member of a bar in good standing
• Experience in the consumer-packaged goods sector is required; experience in a consumer facing business in the food/beverage sector is preferred
• Broad-based legal experience supporting marketing, advertising and regulatory affairs, including drafting and negotiating a variety of agreements (e.g., agency, talent, influencer, licensing, co-collaboration, etc.), with a solid understanding of the associated regulatory environment, competition law, data privacy and intellectual property legal issues
• Experience working through food regulatory matters is strongly preferred (although deep FDA expertise is not required
• Experience managing consumer litigations and sustainability issues is preferred.
• Capable of analyzing complex legal and policy issues from a commercial perspective
• Excellent interpersonal and relationship-building skills, including the ability to influence and persuade both internal and external parties
• Strong work ethic, a willingness to "get hands dirty" and to take personal ownership over work product
• Creative, agile thinker with an entrepreneurial, solutions-oriented mindset to drive business growth objectives in a dynamic, fast-paced environment
• Ability to bring solid legal know-how to insurgent, scalable brands with a "fit for purpose" approach.
• Team player and collaborator that works to meet both personal and organization goals. Ability to navigate a matrixed organization to deliver results.

Certain states and localities require employers to post a reasonable estimate of salary range. A reasonable estimate of the current base salary range for this position is up to $200,000. Actual salary will be based on a variety of factors, including location, experience, skill set, performance, licensure and certification, and business needs. The range for this position in other geographic locations may differ.