Head of Legal and Compliance – Northern Europe

Welcome to Haleon. We're a purpose-driven, world-class consumer company putting everyday health in the hands of millions. In just three years since our launch, we've grown, evolved and are now entering an exciting new chapter – one filled with bold ambitions and enormous opportunity.

Our trusted portfolio of brands – including Sensodyne, Panadol, Advil, Voltaren, Theraflu, Otrivin, and Centrum – lead in resilient and growing categories. What sets us apart is our unique blend of deep human understanding and trusted science.

Now it's time to fully realise the full potential of our business and our people. We do this through our Win as One strategy. It puts our purpose – to deliver better everyday health with humanity – at the heart of everything we do. It unites us, inspires us, and challenges us to be better every day, driven by our agile, performance-focused culture.

About the role

The Head of Legal & Compliance for Northern Europe delivers comprehensive legal and compliance counsel, addressing the rights, obligations, and privileges of the Northern Europe Business Unit (NE BU). This pivotal role oversees legal support across the Clusters—GBI, Nordics, France, and Benelux—while emphasizing strategic and enterprise-level initiatives with a strong external orientation.

This position reports directly to the Head of Legal EMEA-Latam, ensuring alignment with global legal strategy and fostering strategic partnerships across the business.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Participation: Contribute to the development of Haleon's and Group Legal's strategy and risk management by engaging in regional teams and collaborating proactively with Compliance and global legal teams. Actively participate in the Northern Europe Leadership Team (NE LT) and key forums such as Commex/Marketing and the Leaders Forum.

• External Focus: Represent the organization before trade and commercial associations, government agencies, and other external stakeholders, supporting Haleon's external agenda by providing legal and compliance solutions as needed.

• Management of the NE Legal Team and External Resources: Oversee the NE legal team and manage external legal resources. Ensure comprehensive support for contract and litigation management (including governance), category support (including marketing copy approval), and up-to-date guidance on new regulations impacting the business unit. Support international agreements as required.

• Counsel Leadership: Provide expert advice to Northern Europe market leadership on legal, policy, compliance, transactional, and commercial matters, integrating legal and compliance knowledge with business and risk management insights.

• Education: Educate client businesses about sound legal and compliance practices and new developments affecting their operations.

• Delivering Results Through Others: Drive exceptional results by empowering and guiding team members to elevate legal support for Haleon's external initiatives. Lead and improve the legal team, seeking innovative ways to enhance performance and unlock value, ensuring the right level of internal and external legal resources for the business unit.

• Supporting Pan-European Matters: Enhance support for Pan-European risks, including buyers groups, ingredients, and umbrella brands.

• Collaboration Across the Business: Collaborate with other areas—such as R&D, marketing, and global category lawyers—to support shared priorities and foster innovation.

• Facilitating Change: Help colleagues respond to and adapt to change, building a resilient, agile work environment.

• Goal Setting: Set clear, engaging, and motivating goals and objectives for the team.

Qualifications and skills

• Law Graduate (minimum); LLM or equivalent preferred.

• UK Qualified lawyer.

• Over 10 years' experience as an in-house market lawyer for major corporations.

• Strong commercial acumen, data-driven approach, and effective collaboration across business and Group Legal functions.

• Excellent relationship management and persuasive influencing skills.

• Proven leadership and strategic enterprise perspective.

• Deep track record as a market lawyer within a prominent multinational corporation, with extensive experience in cross-regional legal matters and stakeholder management.

• Expertise in pan-European legal frameworks, especially for Northern Europe, and a sophisticated understanding of regulatory landscapes.

• Enterprise mindset and strategic partnership skills, with the ability to align legal strategies with business objectives.

• Data-driven decision-making and commercial acumen.

• Influential leadership and relationship-building skills, with a proven ability to guide senior stakeholders and foster collaboration.

• Experience in managing complex legal challenges and optimizing legal resources for business impact.

Job Posting End Date

Equal Opportunities

Haleon are committed to mobilising our purpose in a way that represents the diverse consumers and communities who rely on our brands every day. It guides us in creating an inclusive culture, where different backgrounds and views are valued and respected – all in support of understanding and best serving the needs of our consumers and unleashing the full potential of our people. It's important to us that Haleon is a place where all our employees feel they truly belong.

During the application process, we may ask you to share some personal information, which is entirely voluntary. This information ensures we meet certain regulatory and reporting obligations and supports the development, refinement, and execution of our inclusion and belonging programmes that are open to all Haleon employees.

The personal information you provide will be kept confidential, used only for legitimate business purposes, and will never be used in making any employment decisions, including hiring decisions.

Adjustment or Accommodations Request

If you require a reasonable adjustment or accommodation or other assistance to apply for a job at Haleon at any stage of the application process, please let your recruiter know by providing them with a description of specific adjustments you are requesting. We'll provide all reasonable adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process and treat all information you provide us in confidence.

Note to candidates

The Haleon recruitment team will contact you using a Haleon email account ). If you are not sure whether the email you received is from Haleon, please get in touch.