Head of Trademarks & Brand Protection

at  Unilever

JOB PURPOSE

The role of the Legal Group is to protect Unilever and help it to win. This role reports into the Chief Intellectual Property Officer and is a newly created role that will have global responsibility for trade marks and brand protection.
In March 2024, Unilever announced steps to accelerate Growth Action Plan (“GAP”) through the separation of Ice Cream and launch of a productivity programme designed to simplify our portfolio and drive greater productivity supporting our ambition to position Unilever as a world-leading consumer goods company delivering strong, sustainable growth and enhanced profitability.
This is a unique and exciting opportunity to join Unilever at a pivotal moment for the company. The role will suit someone who is entrepreneurial, has proven experience of change management on a global scale and is highly collaborative. You will be part of a senior leadership team, and will business partner senior leaders within Legal and other functions such as Marketing and R&D.
You will be responsible for ensuring the implementation of the Corporate IP strategy and will develop the trade mark and brand protection strategy to support Unilever’s goals. You will lead and work closely with all our trade mark and Legal teams around the world to set and drive strategies for our brands, design optimal ways of working, including how we integrate TM team members located in our Powerhouses, lead the selection of external legal vendors, set and manage budgets and business partner key leaders across Unilever to optimise our protection and enforcement strategies. You will also work with other lawyers and functional experts on areas such as litigation, licensing, privacy, tax, competition law, and you will collaborate closely with our business legal teams, and our Head of IP Operations and Head of Patents.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Together with the Chief IP Officer, Head of Patents and Head of IP Operations and global members of the Legal and IP team, you will be responsible for:
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Strategy: developing and implementing global and regional trade mark strategies for brands to enhance Unilever brand value across all areas of IP – ensuring alignment to our commercial priorities and Growth Action Plan (GAP).

• Trade Mark Portfolio Management: setting and implementing processes and ways of working, as well as best practice for the clearance, protection, and maintenance of our intellectual property rights worldwide, including how we support smaller brands and regions, including managing your own trade mark portfolio.
• Brand Protection: setting strategic principles and implementing operating frameworks around brand protection and enforcement, including liaising with other functional experts.
• Data & Technology: accelerating the use of technology to drive speed and automation, as well as the use of data to drive insights and data driven decision making.
• Powerhouses: setting and defining the role of our team members in the Powerhouses and implementing ways of working.
• Litigation: leading on major litigation, setting strategy, selecting external counsel, and collaborating and supervising other team members, including in relation to complex settlement negotiations.
• Commercial Agreements: negotiating and drafting key vendor contracts and commercial agreements, as well as supervising and training team members on commercial drafting and negotiation skills, including collaborating with functional experts where there are inter-dependencies with IP.
• Business Partnering: acting as a trusted business partner to senior leaders, providing pro-active IP counselling on all innovation areas, whilst identifying wider legal issues and notify legal colleagues, e.g. claims, competition risk, design rights, tax, compliance, marketing / regulatory / advertising law.
• Budget: setting, forecasting, tracking, and controlling TM/BP legal spend
• Team Leadership: leading a team of global trade mark and brand protection professionals and fostering a performance culture. You will have a proven track record in developing and supporting talent growth.
• IP Culture: raising IP awareness across the business and ensuring compliance with our Code of Business Principles, as well as global standards and policies, including setting new policies as needed.
• Policy & Advocacy: driving internal and external policy on emerging areas (e.g. GenAI) advising on global changes in legislation and identifying opportunities for Unilever to shape and influence emerging trends.