Managing Legal Counsel, Santander
Employment Legal | S4 | Legal | London TSQ
Retail and commercial bank
Be an early applicant
Retail and commercial bank
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
1001+ employees
Company mission
To help people and businesses prosper.
Role
Who you are
- Our people are our greatest strength. Every individual contributes unique perspectives that make us stronger as a team and as an organisation. We’re enabling teams to go beyond by valuing who they are and empowering what they bring
- The following requirements represent the knowledge, skills, and abilities essential for success in this role. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions
- Substantial experience leading a legal team or significant legal practice area in a complex, regulated organisation. (Required)
- Deep UK employment law expertise across contentious and non-contentious matters, in a financial services environment. (Required)
- Credibility and judgment to advise Executive, Board and senior governance audiences on sensitive, business-critical matters. (Required)
- Proven ability to manage complex litigation, investigations, organisational change, external counsel, budgets and competing priorities. (Required)
- Track record of improving legal service delivery, controls and commercial outcomes. (Preferable)
- You must hold either a current Solicitors Practising Certificate for England and Wales or be fully admitted to the English Bar or hold a Scottish or foreign jurisdiction equivalent or commercial qualification
- Employment legal expertise – Strong expertise across contentious and non-contentious UK Financial Services-related employment law, including SMCR, Conduct Rules, remuneration, investigations, whistleblowing, people change, TUPE, collective consultation and industrial relations
- Governance and resource management – Ability to oversee material legal risk, advise senior committees, manage external counsel and budgets, and give clear strategic advice
- Leadership and people development - Sets direction, develops capability, manages performance and builds an inclusive, high-performing team
- Influence and communication - Communicates with clarity and judgment, influences senior stakeholders and challenges constructively
- Commercial judgment - Combines strong legal analysis with pragmatism, accountability and focus on outcomes
What the job involves
- Santander UK Group is looking for a Managing Legal Counsel – Employment Legal based out of our London office
- Reporting to the Director, Litigation & Contentious Regulatory, this role forms part of the Litigation & Contentious Regulatory leadership team and is Santander UK Group’s lead employment legal role
- You will lead the Employment Legal team and provide strategic, business-focused advice on significant employment legal, regulatory and reputational matters across Santander UK Group
- Lead the Employment Legal function, setting direction, priorities and standards and ensuring high-quality, commercial advice on complex people matters
- Develop a high-performing team, with accountability for performance, capability, engagement, succession planning and an inclusive culture
- Advise senior stakeholders and governance for a on strategically significant employment legal matters, including executive, committee and Board-level papers and participation where required
- Oversee material contentious matters, including employment litigation, ADR, investigations, whistleblowing, complex employee relations issues, industrial relations and settlement strategy
- Provide strategic non-contentious advice on SMCR, Conduct Rules, Fitness & Propriety, remuneration, senior leader and MRT changes, organisational change, TUPE and collective consultation
- Strengthen legal risk management through effective governance, controls, reporting, MI, lessons learned and continuous improvement
- Deliver value from legal resources by insourcing strategic employment, employee benefits and pensions advice where appropriate, allocating work effectively across internal and external resources, managing panel firms, budgets and costs, capturing effective MI and embedding best practice
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Santander serves 14 million UK customers as a retail and commercial bank. Despite a mixed history, including issues with call centre service, mis-selling PPI, and anti-money laundering control failures between 2012 and 2017, Santander continues to thrive by focusing on innovation, digitalisation, and sustainable, responsible growth.
Recently, Santander has enhanced its digital and mobile services to meet the needs of modern banking customers. This includes the My Home Manager app, which provides mortgage customers with a centralised platform for their information, and increased fraud alerts to protect less digitally literate customers as they transition online. These efforts aim to connect physical and digital channels for a seamless customer experience, positioning Santander to better compete against digital banks like Monzo and Starling.
In addition to these digital advancements, Santander has joined forces with Iberpay in Spain to become inaugural participants in the European Payments Council’s One-Leg Out Cross-border Transactions Instant Scheme (OCT Inst). This initiative is set to introduce global instant transfers, further emphasising Santander's commitment to innovation and enhancing its service offerings in the digital banking landscape.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
2% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Company HQ
London, UK
Leadership
Mike Regnier
(CEO)Former CEO of the Yorkshire Building Society, where they also previously worked as Chief Customer Officer and Chief Commercial Officer.
Share this job