Senior Commercial Counsel, Oral Health

Welcome to Haleon. We’re a purpose-driven, world-class consumer company putting everyday health in the hands of millions. In just three years since our launch, we’ve grown, evolved and are now entering an exciting new chapter – one filled with bold ambitions and enormous opportunity.

Our trusted portfolio of brands – including Sensodyne®, Panadol®, Advil®, Voltaren®, Theraflu®, Otrivin®, and Centrum® – lead in resilient and growing categories. What sets us apart is our unique blend of deep human understanding and trusted science.

Now it’s time to fully realise the full potential of our business and our people. We do this through our Win as One strategy. It puts our purpose – to deliver better everyday health with humanity – at the heart of everything we do. It unites us, inspires us, and challenges us to be better every day, driven by our agile, performance-focused culture.

About the Role

Senior Legal Counsel, Oral Health, serves as a key member of Haleon’s Global Commercial Legal team, providing comprehensive legal support to the Global Marketing and R&D functions.

The position acts as the primary legal adviser for the OH global category, delivering expert guidance across critical areas including advertising/marketing, claims, challenges involving competitors, product development, regulatory, compliance, corporate communications, and business transactions.

The role reports to the Assistant General Counsel, Head of Legal - Oral Health and collaborates closely with the Trademarks Senior Counsel, OH, the Patents Senior Counsel, OH, and senior leaders across the global Haleon organisation.

The OH Legal team covers all commercial and intellectual property matters for the business, and a key part of the role will be collaboration between these specialists to offer the best partnership for the category.

The focus will be on our category-leading oral health brands of Sensodyne, Parodontax, Corega and Aquafresh.

The OH business has been consistently the highest performing category across Haleon in recent years and it has a dedicated team, also based in the UK. This role will be the key legal partner for this part of the business.

Senior Legal Counsel, Oral Health also works in partnership with in‑market legal teams and colleagues across the Group Legal function, contributing broad expertise to enable effective, compliant, and strategically aligned business operations across the Haleon enterprise.

Key responsibilities

Support the OH category on legal matters:

• Strategically partner with the OH category teams to deliver high-quality legal advice and provide day-to-day legal support, partnering closely with local legal teams and business stakeholders to provide timely, practical solutions.
• Provide claims support for strategic projects, including attendance at review meetings and managing approvals.
• Provide practical legal guidance and solutions for local advertising law challenges, balancing risk management with business ambition.
• Deliver contractual support for OH-specific matters, ensuring commercial objectives are achieved with robust legal protection.
• Lead the creation, maintenance, and rollout of toolkits and trackers to drive harmonised, efficient legal support for local lawyers and Global Marketing teams.
• Monitor changes in legislation relevant to the OH category and proactively share updates, ensuring business compliance and readiness.
• Act as the first point of contact for on-the-ground ad hoc legal support for the OH team. Our main office is in Bankside, London and that will be the primary location for this role. However, the Oral Health team is based in Weybridge – the team spends one day a week co-located with the business.
• Collaborate with the Global Category Legal Lead, OH to drive consistency in legal approaches across local markets, sharing best practices and lessons learned.
• Advise business on general corporate affairs and public policy matters relating to the global brands.
• Build strong relationships with local legal teams and cross-functional partners, promoting knowledge-sharing and supporting Haleon’s legal community to deliver on category and business priorities.

Competency

• Extensive in-house legal experience in one or more of the following substantive areas:  Advertising/Marketing, Commercial Transactions, Consumer Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and/or Consumer Packaged Goods (science background helpful but not required)
• Demonstrated ability to learn and apply new legal concepts quickly, proactively identify issues, and succeed in developing solutions in a fast-paced environment
• Excellent communication skills, including careful listening to facilitate understanding of business needs, and the ability to translate complex legal considerations into practical business advice
• Track record of accountability and sound judgment, including ability and willingness to take ownership of projects, prioritize and resolve issues, and obtain business results
• Strong negotiation and drafting skills
• Detail-oriented yet pragmatic approach to problem-solving
• High energy and motivation to learn new areas, stay current with relevant legal developments, influence leadership, and contribute to the success of the business and the Legal Compliance & Company Secretariat department

Qualifications

• University Degree or equivalent law degree and law conversion
• Legal Practice Course complete (UK)

 Job Posting End Date

Equal Opportunities

Haleon are committed to mobilising our purpose in a way that represents the diverse consumers and communities who rely on our brands every day. It guides us in creating an inclusive culture, where different backgrounds and views are valued and respected – all in support of understanding and best serving the needs of our consumers and unleashing the full potential of our people. It’s important to us that Haleon is a place where all our employees feel they truly belong.

During the application process, we may ask you to share some personal information, which is entirely voluntary. This information ensures we meet certain regulatory and reporting obligations and supports the development, refinement, and execution of our inclusion and belonging programmes that are open to all Haleon employees. 

The personal information you provide will be kept confidential, used only for legitimate business purposes, and will never be used in making any employment decisions, including hiring decisions.

Adjustment or Accommodations Request

If you require a reasonable adjustment or accommodation or other assistance to apply for a job at Haleon at any stage of the application process, please let your recruiter know by providing them with a description of specific adjustments you are requesting. We’ll provide all reasonable adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process and treat all information you provide us in confidence. 

Note to candidates

The Haleon recruitment team will contact you using a Haleon email account (@haleon.com). If you are not sure whether the email you received is from Haleon, please get in touch.