Head Legal & Compliance Kingdom of Saudi and Gulf

Job Description Summary

The Head Legal & Compliance Kingdom of Saudi and Gulf will drive legal and compliance excellence at country level.

Job Description

The Head Legal & Compliance Kingdom of Saudi and Gulf will drive legal and compliance excellence at country level, through directly leading and supervising legal and compliance work and guidance in alignment with the strategy of the local business and the functional Legal & Compliance priorities.

Major Accountabilities

• Adopt a pro-active, business focused approach by:
  • Serving as single point of contact for all Legal & Compliance tasks in Gulf and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia including coordinating data privacy, antitrust, intellectual property topics with Global Leads and Teams.
  • Providing Legal & Compliance advice and determining appropriate actions/ processes in line with local strategy, local legal trends and legislation changes.
  • Managing matters and litigation (legislative matters, antibribery, unfair competition and anti-trust, labour etc.)
  • Negotiating, drafting and management of commercial agreements (focusing on sell side)
  • Managing Legal & Compliance reporting, monitoring & training, incl. transparency reporting, dawn-raid training.
  • Supporting enterprise risk management, third party risk management, contract management, risk assessment management, contract management and CORE etc.
  • Ensuring timely and high-quality analysis of legislation, legislation drafts and their potential impact on the Sandoz META Export business processes
• As a member of the Country Leadership Team, pro-actively contribute to strategy and business discussions, decisions, and outcomes.
• Consistently explore opportunities to improve and strengthen the culture of compliance, looking for ways of addressing risks in an efficient and agile manner.
• Support investigations conducted by authorities, Corporate Security and Speak-Up on legal and compliance issues.
• Responsible for anticipating, identifying and analysing legal issues and the development of legal strategies and solutions. Continuously monitor developments in the business, local market and legal/regulatory regime to adequately assess legal risks and opportunities for Sandoz and propose concrete actions to mitigate risks and exploit opportunities.
• Ensure local management team is made aware of Group-wide norms, including policies, and are taking action to implement the same in their businesses. Oversee adjustment of all such norms, where required, to reflect local law and regulation.
• Ensure training is provided to management and associates in the areas of the law presenting the greatest risk locally.
• Act as a business partner in all actions relating to Sandoz’s contractual negotiations, compliance and statutory obligations; relating to the ownership, control and protection of inventions and confidential business information, reviewing, drafting and negotiating all legal business issues regarding Sandoz’s research collaborations, licensing activities and other significant transactions.
• Handle legal issues related to business development, labour law and corporate governance. Negotiate and draft distribution agreements, licensing agreements, promotion agreements, services agreements, acquisition and/or divestment agreements.

Key Performance Indicators

• Internal stakeholder satisfaction with amount, appropriateness, and timeliness of legal support provided (i.e pragmatic and principled, reliable, fast, customer oriented)
• Strong, collaborative leadership displayed, influencing outside area of direct responsibility with business acumen and excellent communication
• Successful enforcement/defence of contracts within Gulf and KSA
• Full integration into the respective leadership teams and strong collaboration with key stakeholders
• Strong cross-functional collaboration
• No major compliance/regulatory issue
• Successful outcomes to significant investigations & litigations
• Legal team talent acquisition & development (mentoring, coaching, delegating)

Minimum Requirements:

• Law school graduate & bar qualification (admitted to practice law in a jurisdiction)
• Fluency in written and spoken English and Arabic essential.
• 10 years post qualification experience required: ideally gained within a healthcare / pharmaceutical environment, and/or, with a top-tier law firm representing healthcare.
• Experience in Saudi Arabia and Gulf is preferable
• Experience in managing Legal & Compliance teams, work and projects
• Ability to work independently with minimum supervision.
• Ability to analyse complex legal and compliance issues.
• Strong verbal & written communication skills; together with a high ability to influence and negotiate.
• Proven ability to deal positively when working within tight time pressures & demanding clients.
• Financial/business acumen and business partnering skills
• Demonstrate professional & culturally sensitive work ethics
• Change agility and resilience
• Strong analytical and organisational skills.
• Proven ability to proactively provide insightful and timely legal support to stakeholders across a functionally and geographically dispersed organisation.
• Results oriented mentality i.e. “ability to get things done” avoiding legal “over engineering” while safeguarding Sandoz rights.
• Ability to question and improve the status quo.
• Ability to set priorities and manage a wide ranging workload.

Why Sandoz?

Generic and Biosimilar medicines are the backbone of the global medicines industry. Sandoz, a leader in this sector, provided more than 900 million patient treatments across 100+ countries in 2024 and while we are proud of this achievement, we have an ambition to do more!

With investments in new development capabilities, production sites, new acquisitions, and partnerships, we have the opportunity to shape the future of Sandoz and help more patients gain access to low-cost, high-quality medicines, sustainably.

Our momentum is powered by an open, collaborative culture driven by our talented and ambitious colleagues, who, in return for applying their skills, experience an agile and collegiate environment with impactful, flexible-hybrid careers, where diversity is welcomed and where personal growth is supported! 

Join us!

Skills Desired

Business Networking, Business Partners, Calls Handling, Contract Management, Curiosity, Decision Making Skills, Finance, Law (Legal System), Litigation Law, Microsoft Office, Proactivity, Quality Control