Senior Legal Counsel

About RS Group

Across the industrial design, manufacturing and maintenance worlds, we’re the digital destination for product and service solutions to help our customers with the maintenance, repair and operation of their businesses. We provide global access to an unrivalled range of over 750,000 stocked industrial products. Each day our team of experts deliver solutions to resolve our customer’s challenges across design, procurement, inventory and maintenance.

We consistently strive to deliver the best possible service to all of our customers and challenge ourselves to provide a seamless procurement experience.

We are one team. We deliver brilliantly. We do the right thing. We make every day better. These are our values. They unite our c.9,000 global colleagues and differentiate us from our competition. They are a mix of how we work today and how we must step up for the future. Most importantly, it is one set of values shaped by our people, for our people.

Together, we can make great things happen. Aim for amazing and beyond.

Role Purpose

The Legal & Compliance team sits within the Corporate Services function. The function’s purpose is to accelerate the delivery of our RS strategy, vision and values by being the trusted partner in our areas of expertise. Through our partnership we enable operational excellence, cost effectiveness, risk mitigation and wider value creation for our stakeholders.

The Legal & Compliance team delivers that through:

• Providing legal expertise, partnering with the business. We respond to the needs of the business through continuous review of our own processes and how they fit into the ever-changing legal and statutory environment. The law is never static and neither are we.
• Creating and identifying value added services and opportunities. We enable operational excellence by providing tools that resonate with this business (streamlined contract frameworks, policies, toolkits, chatbots..).
• Keeping our people and our business safe. We keep the company safe by providing clear, actionable and pragmatic guidance that empowers the business to make informed decisions and balance risk with commercial benefit.
• Putting effective and efficient governance and systems in place. Our process and processes are based on the risk tolerance of the organization at any given time – we are a living breathing function ready to respond.
• Always looking ahead. We horizon scan to anticipate legal and regulatory risks early and provide our business partners with the tools needed to understand changes to the law, that impact how they operate.

Partner with stakeholders across all Americas businesses, with a strong emphasis on RS’s United States (RS Americas) and Latin America (Risoul) businesses. Provide pragmatic and strategic legal advice and input on legal & regulatory matters, working primarily with ExCo-2 (i.e. regional senior and functional leaders, direct reports of the Regional Executive Leadership Teams). Act as first port of call for day-to-day matters (e.g. contract review and negotiation, management of external counsel), with support and direction from the Senior Director – Legal on material matters.

Emergency cover for Senior Director - Legal.

Strategic Legal Advice

• Provide legal counsel and strategic guidance on a wide range of matters including corporate, commercial, regulatory, employment, and compliance issues across the United States, Canada, and Latin America, including Mexico, Dominican Republic, Trinidad & Tobago.
• Draft, review, and negotiate complex commercial agreements, including supplier (both direct and indirect procurement), customer/sales, logistics, warehousing, and distribution contracts.
• Oversee regional litigation, disputes, and investigations, working closely with external counsel as needed.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to mitigate legal risks and provide proactive solutions aligned with business objectives.
• Support corporate restructuring and other strategic initiatives in the region.
• Monitor future legal and regulatory developments affecting the industrial distribution industry in the Americas and support the business in adapting to them.

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