Head of Legal & Company Secretary – Standard Chartered

Job Purpose:

• Provide Legal support to the business segments, senior management and functions.
• Ensure management appreciation of legal related risks and potential areas of risk and to engender discipline to ensure avoidance of behaviour which opens up the Bank to legal risk.
• Ensure oversight for third party legal service providers to ensure quality and effective representation to the Bank.
• Protect the Bank’s reputation through avoidance of regulatory actions arising from failure to adhere to good corporate governance and to proactively resolve legal disputes when they arise.
• Act as a central point of reference for the Group and Regional General Counsel and members of the Legal Management Team.
• Serve as the Company Secretary to the Board and Board Committees of Standard Chartered Bank Nominee company.
• Drive high standards of corporate governance and deliver key priorities and initiatives, aligned to the Group Corporate Secretariat’s performance scorecard.

Generic:

• Provide timely legal advice, briefings and recommendations on key legal issues to stakeholders, including applicable legislation and banking codes.
• Raise awareness of legal risks and issues within the business through targeted training and knowledge sharing.
• Ensure that all relevant Group policies are adopted, and all relevant business policies are adopted.
• Share best practice throughout the region through the Head of Legal, Southern Africa.
• Ensure a consistent approach to management of Legal related issues in Botswana.

Legal:

• Manage all legal issues in Botswana and ensure that transactions and cases are executed in a timely and effective manner.
• Use technical knowledge of all business products to provide sound, technical product, legal and transactional advice to the business and to anticipate and communicate in a timely fashion the impact of legal developments on the business.  Develop appropriate forms of documentation for products and transactions in Botswana.
• Manage the process of engaging external counsel, including effective instructions to external counsel and negotiating appropriate fee structures for the transaction / case in question.
• Prepare regular and accurate country legal risk reports that provide clear analysis.
• Communicate identified risks to country, business and regional stakeholders and influence stakeholders to improve legal risk controls and governance at a country level.
• Develop and maintain a legal training plan for legal team and stakeholders.
• Ensure robust Legal support is provided in Botswana.

Business:

• Support the business segments build a profitable growth business through:
• Ensuring tight legal controls, robust advice on transactions, quick turnaround of work and cost discipline;
• Development of a culture of legal awareness in the business approach to avoid losses on avoidable legal matters; and
• Progressively reducing legal spend on external legal counsel through development of internal expertise and doing more in-house.

People and Talent:

Develop talent through:

• Rigorous identification of High Performance, High Potential Individuals (9 box).
• Identifying critical resources and hot skills to be ‘Ring Fenced’.
• Robust succession planning.
• Creating opportunities for STAs and engagement opportunities with senior Legal (and other business and function) staff.
• Creating opportunities for leadership Development Programs.
• Focusing on talent identification and acquisition.
• Leading through example and building the appropriate culture and values.  Setting appropriate tone and expectations from the team and work in collaboration with risk and control partners.
• Constantly Reviewing team structure/capacity plans.
• Setting and monitoring job descriptions and objectives for direct reports and providing feedback and rewards in line with their performance against those responsibilities and objectives.

Governance:

• Responsible for assessing the effectiveness of the firm’s Legal related arrangements to deliver effective governance, oversight and controls in the business and, if necessary, oversee changes in these areas.
• Develop and maintain awareness and understanding of the regulatory framework in which the firm operates, and the regulatory requirements and expectations relevant to the role.
• Responsible for delivering ‘effective governance’; capability to challenge fellow executives effectively; and willingness to work with any local regulators in an open and cooperative manner.
• Provide unified leadership and ensure strong end to end governance across all matters related to the company.

Corporate Secretariat:

• Provide advice to the Directors, INEDs and Accountable Executives on board/ board committee agendas to ensure the directors have the right information to make the decisions/ approvals being requested in the nominee company board meetings.
• Work closely with the Chief Executive Officer and Regional Cosec to develop, maintain and execute on a robust board succession plan.
• Deliver a tailored induction programme for all newly appointed directors within three months of appointment including relevant training on the product and legislation.
• Consult, guide and advise the directors on relevant ongoing training in respect to fiduciary duties, director responsibilities and liabilities, governance developments/ issues, strategic priorities and risk management principles. Maintain a log of all training completed.
• Be a ‘trusted advisor’ to the directors and INEDs and be their point of contact for all corporate governance and board related matters.
• Support the Chief Executive Officer in establishing and maintaining a robust relationship with independent non-executive directors.
• Ensure Group led ‘linkages’ initiatives are fully supported by the directors. Proactively provide information of significance to the Independent Directors, particularly in respect to public information about the Group or any matter that is likely to be reported in the public domain. Work closely with the Chief Executive Officer and liaise with the Regional Head, COSEC to ensure alignment.
• Provide advice and work with the Chairman to ensure a board evaluation is conducted on an annual basis and follow up actions are implemented even though not required for Botswana.
• Manage all entities in Blueprint where named as the Responsible Person (“RP”) and ensure that Blueprint is always maintained and accurate.
• Provide guidance to all Accountable Executives (AE) in the country so they fully understand their responsibilities and complete their six-monthly reports to the Governing Chief Executive Officer.
• Provide advice to all stakeholders on corporate authorities and work closely with the senior management to ensure relevant board and committee approvals are obtained on a timely basis.
• Ensure that all senior managers clearly understand the sources of authority framework and the process for obtaining approval authority and demonstrating evidence as appropriate to external third parties (includes advisory on the Group Authorised Signatory Book, Group Delegated Authorities Manual and Power of Attorney Policy).

Regulatory & Business conduct:

• Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct.
• Take responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.
• Lead the Legal team to achieve the outcomes set out in the Bank’s Conduct Principles: [Fair Outcomes for Clients; Financial Crime Prevention; The Right Environment.]
• Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.
• Exercise authorities delegated by the Board of Directors and act in accordance with Articles of Association (or equivalent)
• Embed the Group’s Values and Group Code of Conduct to ensure adherence with the highest standards of ethics.  Comply with relevant policies, processes and regulations, as part of the culture.  Lead by example by displaying exemplary conduct behaviours and take personal responsibility for:
  • The conduct of individuals in the Legal team ensuring behaviours set out in the Group Code of Conduct are followed.
  •  Legal achieving the outcomes set out in the Conduct Principals and Pillars.
  • Both direct and indirect/dotted line managers are individually accountable to proactively communicate, collaborate and agree on the conduct ratings of employees.

The role of Head of Legal and Company Secretary is designated as an executive officer role in terms of the Banking Act. A principal officer owes a fiduciary duty and a duty of care and skill to the Bank, and has (a) a duty to- act bona fide in the interests of the Bank, its depositors and shareholders (b) avoid any conflict between his or her personal interests and the interests of the Bank its depositors and shareholders (c) possess and maintain the knowledge and skill that may reasonably be expected of a person holding a similar appointment and (d) exercise care in the carrying out of his or her functions in relation to the Bank as may reasonably be expected of a diligent person who holds the same appointment and who possesses both the knowledge and skill.

Key Stakeholders:

• Chairman of the Board
• CEO Botswana
• Other Board members
• Executive Committee (CMT) members
• Head of Legal, Southern Africa
• Head of COSEC AME
• AME Legal Management Team
• Corporate Affairs Botswana
• Business contacts within SCB (from a consultative perspective)
• Financial Services and other relevant Regulators
• Other relevant Group departments where applicable
• External service providers where applicable

Other Responsibilities:

• Embed Group’s brand and values in the Legal team.
• Perform other responsibilities assigned under Group, Country, Business or Functional policies and procedures.
• Ensure the Legal team achieves objectives and goals as agreed with stakeholders.

Our Ideal Candidate:

• Qualified Senior Lawyer
• Admission to the Law Society
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience
• High level communication skills (English)
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Excellent written skills (English)

About Standard Chartered

We’re an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 160 years, we’ve worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you’re looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents. And we can’t wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity,  together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you’ll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion. Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Be better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term
• In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.
• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations
• Time-off including annual, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 weeks maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies – everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.
• Recruitment assessments – some of our roles use assessments to help us understand how suitable you are for the role you’ve applied to. If you are invited to take an assessment, this is great news. It means your application has progressed to an important stage of our recruitment process.