# Regional Lead Counsel - Americas **Company**: Valvoline Global Operations **Location**: Lexington, KY **Experience**: senior **Job type**: full-time **Category**: Legal **Industry**: Automotive **Apply**: https://jobs.valvolineglobal.com/job/Lexington-Regional-Lead-Counsel-Americas-KY-40509/1402652300/?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply **Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_ce72a752-e10 ## Description The Regional Lead Counsel - Americas serves as the lead legal advisor and strategic business partner for Valvoline Global Operations' Americas business, a $2.5 billion region spanning the United States, Canada, and Latin America. **Key Responsibilities Include** **Strategic Business Partnership & Leadership** - Serve as the lead legal advisor to the Americas Leadership Team, providing strategic counsel that supports business growth, operational excellence, and achievement of regional objectives. - Act as the primary legal business partner to the SVP, General Manager - Americas and senior leadership team. - Participate as an active member of the Americas Leadership Team, contributing to business strategy, commercial decision-making, risk assessment, and operational planning. - Provide practical, business-oriented legal advice that appropriately balances risk mitigation with commercial objectives. - Identify emerging legal, regulatory, and commercial risks impacting the Americas region and develop proactive mitigation strategies. - Influence business decisions through effective communication of legal implications, alternatives, and recommended courses of action. **Commercial & Procurement Legal Leadership** - Lead all legal support for the Americas commercial, procurement, supply chain, and operational functions. - Lead the legal support strategy for commercial contracting activities across the Americas region, providing oversight and guidance for the negotiation, execution, and management of a broad range of commercial agreements. - Provide legal guidance on commercial transactions, strategic initiatives, pricing programs, sales models, and customer relationships. - Advise business leaders on contractual risk allocation, liability management, performance obligations, and dispute avoidance. - Support the development and implementation of scalable commercial contracting processes and governance frameworks. **Regional Legal Operations & Risk Management** - Lead legal support across the United States, Canada, and Latin America, ensuring consistent legal standards while accounting for local market requirements. - Partner with regional stakeholders to address legal matters arising from business operations, supply chain activities, and customer engagements. - Assess and manage commercial, regulatory, operational, and reputational risks associated with regional initiatives. - Establish practical legal policies, guidelines, and controls that enable efficient business execution. - Support internal investigations, dispute resolution efforts, and risk mitigation activities in partnership with Legal Centers of Excellence when applicable. - Ensure legal considerations are effectively integrated into strategic business initiatives and operational processes. **Leadership & Team Development** - Lead, coach, and develop a team consisting of two attorneys and two paralegals supporting the Americas region. - Establish priorities, allocate resources, and ensure delivery of high-quality legal services aligned with business needs. - Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, continuous improvement, and customer-focused legal support. - Develop team capabilities in commercial contracting, legal operations, and business partnership. - Drive workload management and resource optimization across the regional legal team. - Partner closely with Employment, Litigation, Ethics & Compliance, Intellectual Property, Data Privacy, and M&A legal teams to deliver coordinated legal support. **Contract Lifecycle Management & Process Excellence** - Champion the implementation, optimization, and governance of contract lifecycle management (CLM) tools and processes supporting increasing commercial and procurement contracting volumes. - Drive standardization, automation, and continuous improvement initiatives that enhance efficiency, compliance, and business responsiveness. - Develop and maintain contract templates, playbooks, approval frameworks, and negotiation guidelines. - Leverage data, analytics, and technology to improve contract management effectiveness and legal service delivery. - Promote self-service and scalable legal solutions where appropriate to support business growth. **What You’ll Need** - Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from an accredited law school and an active license to practice law in at least one U.S. jurisdiction. - 10+ years of progressive legal experience, including significant commercial, transactional, and business counseling experience gained through a combination of in-house and/or law firm roles. - Demonstrated success serving as a trusted legal advisor to senior executives and business leaders within a complex, multinational organization. - Extensive experience drafting, negotiating, and managing a broad range of sophisticated commercial agreements. - Experience supporting commercial, procurement, supply chain, manufacturing, sales, marketing, and operational functions. - Experience managing outside counsel and supporting business operations across multiple jurisdictions. - Strong knowledge of commercial contracting, transactional law, contract risk management, and legal and regulatory frameworks affecting multinational business operations. - Experience leveraging legal technology, including contract lifecycle management (CLM) systems. - Strong business and financial acumen, with the ability to balance legal risk with commercial objectives and provide practical, business-focused solutions. - Exceptional analytical, judgment, communication, negotiation, and problem-solving skills. - Proven leadership, collaboration, and stakeholder management capabilities. ## Skills ### Required - commercial contracting - transactional law - contract risk management - legal technology - leadership - collaboration - stakeholder management ### Nice to have - experience in the United States, Canada, and Latin America - contract lifecycle management (CLM) systems --- Source: [Apply at jobs.valvolineglobal.com](https://jobs.valvolineglobal.com/job/Lexington-Regional-Lead-Counsel-Americas-KY-40509/1402652300/?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply)