Vice President and General Counsel, Beckman Life Sciences

The VP and General Counsel, Beckman Coulter Life Sciences supports Beckman Coulter Life Sciences. This person is responsible for providing leadership, guidance, direction, and assistance in connection with a wide variety of legal, regulatory, compliance, and business matters globally. The General Counsel reports to the VP and General Counsel, Life Sciences Innovations Group, with a dotted line reporting relationship to the President of Bec LS.  The General Counsel will oversee a team of professionals managing general legal, with dotted-line reporting relationships from Intellectual Property (IP), Trade, and Compliance specialists.

The General Counsel will be part of a team of GCs within the Life Sciences Platform and across other platforms and Corporate, and will be expected to build collaborative relationships to leverage best practices, lessons learned and avoid waste/duplication.

Responsibilities

• Gaining a solid understanding of the Bec LS business, its goals, and challenges and identifying appropriate legal and compliance strategies to facilitate those goals and minimize those challenges 
• Negotiating, strategizing, documenting commercial transactions, contracts, and other legal arrangements
• Developing appropriate approaches to litigation, arbitration, and dispute resolution; providing regular, clear communication on litigation issues and opportunities to the president and the leadership team as well as the Life Sciences Platform General Counsel’s office
• Assisting the business and Danaher with mergers & acquisitions from due diligence to documentation depending on the situation and background
• Assess the needs of the business from a legal and regulatory perspective and business partner to executives (operates as senior leadership team member with subject matter expertise in legal/compliance) effectively advising on go to market practices to drive growth and mitigate risk
• Strong budget management, including forecast accuracy and judicious use of outside counsel and other third party resources.
• Build collaborative relationship within the global Danaher legal community

Education and/or Work Experience Requirements:

• A law degree from a U.S. law school, preferably one recognized for graduating top lawyers

• 15+ years of experience (top tier law firm and in house within life sciences)
• 7+ years of leadership experience

• Extensive exposure to and success in a dynamic med-device or pharma business environment

• Understanding of Quality Management Systems in a regulated and non-regulated environments
• Major law firm experience, partnership preferred, or equivalent in-house experience, or combination of the two
• Substantial responsibility in various areas of law and/or business 
• Experience in-house is not necessary but strongly preferred; some experiences that suggest an ability to hit ground running in a complex, semi-matrixed organization is a must
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally as needed, perhaps as much as 20-30% of time 
• Some international experience, foreign language capability a plus

Additional Requirements:

• Must be an excellent lawyer, able to explain complex legal points to business leaders with varying degrees of sophistication about legal matters; able to take business leaders’ concerns and demands into account in how best to pursue legal strategies
• Intelligent and articulate; nimble and quick-minded; able and willing to engage in debate; unwilling to accept unethical conduct or outcomes that threaten Beckman Coulter Life Sciences or Danaher
• Business-minded
• Demonstrated leadership experience
• Ability to balance numerous matters and “masters” while prioritizing same on a day-to-day basis as events require 
• Able to command the respect of, and influence, business leaders, and outside counsel across a wide spectrum of experience and sophistication 
• Can work effectively with lower level employees, yet communicate with effectiveness and polish at the most senior levels 
• Tough-minded but able to be flexible when the situation demands it, able to think on feet, ability to engage in searching, critical discussion without personalizing outcomes 
• High integrity and ethics in all dealings – internal, external, and personal; non-political in conduct, while understanding internal and external political dynamics
• Open to learning, enthused by the day, resilient, sense of humor
• Willing to work on the smallest and simplest, as well as the most complex, legal matters faced by the company
• Ability to lead and communicate with a team of highly qualified professionals, provide coaching and developmental opportunities

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by incumbent. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required by incumbent.  Incumbent may be required to perform other duties as assigned.

Join our winning team today. Together, we’ll accelerate the real-life impact of tomorrow’s science and technology. We partner with customers across the globe to help them solve their most complex challenges, architecting solutions that bring the power of science to life. 

For more information, visit www.danaher.com.

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