Senior Legal Counsel

Job Description

Job Description:

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 regions. The 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 practical, timely legal advice that balances risk management with business objectives in 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