Interim Legal Director

at  Specsavers

Duration: This is an interim role with an intended duration of 12 – 14 months.
Location: This hybrid role requires 3 days on-site at our Burnaby office and 2 days remote per week.
Salary: $230,000 – $270,000
Actual compensation within the range will be based on experience
We also offer quarterly variable compensation package (bonus) + benefits

Purpose of the role
The legal team is there to support the growth of the Specsavers business in the Canadian retail optical and optometry market, providing the commercial and legal infrastructure for the Specsavers partnership business model in Canada.
We are currently recruiting an Interim Legal Director to lead our in-house legal team and provide strategic legal advice to our Canadian management and business partners. This role involves offering commercial legal support, ensuring compliance with legislative requirements, and managing various legal matters including incident management, dispute resolution, privacy and data protection, and regulatory compliance.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide strategic legal advice to Canadian management and business partners on all matters pertaining to the business.
• Act as both a legal advisor and business partner to achieve corporate goals and protect the Canadian business.
• Support in negotiating key transactions for business operations and growth.
• Act as a representative of the business to third-parties, including external counsel, regulators, and governing bodies.
• Ensure compliance with data protection and privacy laws in the landscape of personal identifiable and personal health information.
• Horizon scanning for emerging and evolving laws that impact the Canadian business.
• Oversee team members to ensure timely and accurate delivery of corporate legal compliance and regulatory submissions.
• Protect the brand and partnership by mitigating legal, reputational, and regulatory risks.
• Support the business in ensuring commercial decisions are legally informed, liaising with professional advisers as necessary.
• Provide advice on employee relations matters and disputes.
• Lead, manage, develop, and support any individuals in the Canadian Legal team, promoting a culture of personal development, inclusiveness, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure the successful delivery of legal input for all required regulatory compliance ensuring deadlines are achieved.
• Support with competition law compliance, review of marketing material, and legal advice related to marketing campaigns.
• Ensure Canadian management team and other relevant functions are aware of existing relevant provincial regulations and any upcoming changes that could impact Specsavers operations within Canada and make recommendations as appropriate.
• Support with legal research and advice related to business expansion to other jurisdictions and platforms in compliance with relevant legislative and regulatory requirements.
• Provide support to Human Resources to ensure policies are compliant with provincial regulations, contracts are compliant with the Canadian landscapes, procedures are managed within the confines of the Canadian laws.
• Providing advice on employee relations matters and disputes.
• Provide advice on partner relations matters and disputes.
• Work with stakeholders to ensure Annual Plan and Pillars are accomplished.
• Work with the clinical team to ensure regulatory landscape is at the forefront of business decisions (including revising the status quo way of doing business in country).
• Ensuring the successful delivery of legal input for all required regulatory compliance ensuring deadlines are achieved.
• Ensuring compliance tasks are completed as efficiently as possible, continuously looking for improvement. opportunities and implementing these where appropriate.
• Identifying any areas of regulatory, legal and/or reputational concern in system or process controls and ensuring these are escalated, where appropriate, and resolved.
• Working with retail operations teams to ensure the quality and clarity of information communicated to partners on regulatory matters.
• Recognizing and advising on any significant Canadian regulatory, litigation and/or reputational risks the Canadian and/or global business
• Facilitating collaboration across relevant areas of the organization to improve understanding of the Canadian business and its requirements.
• Reduce external legal spend.
• Act as a legal advisor on the Diversity & Inclusion committee to advance global pillars.
• Support with the roll out of Financial Risk Support in the Canadian business.
• Lead, manage, develop and support any individuals in the Canadian Legal team, promoting a culture of personal development, inclusiveness and continuous improvement.