Head of Legal

The Head of Legal will be Beaufort’s lead legal advisor, providing commercially focused, pragmatic legal support across the Group.

Working closely with the Executive Leadership Team and senior leaders across the business, the role will provide advice across commercial contracting, corporate governance, risk, compliance, disputes and strategic business matters. The Head of Legal will establish appropriate legal frameworks and governance while ensuring that legal support remains proportionate, responsive and aligned with the commercial needs of a growing international organisation.

A key element of the role will be supporting Beaufort’s growth and value creation agenda, including acquisitions, investments and other corporate transactions, from early-stage evaluation and due diligence through transaction execution and post-deal integration.

As the senior legal professional within Beaufort, the role will also manage relationships with external legal advisers globally, ensuring the business accesses specialist expertise when required while maintaining strong oversight of legal risk, quality and cost.

Requirements

Legal Leadership & Business Partnering

• Act as the lead legal advisor to Beaufort, providing trusted, commercially focused counsel to the CEO/CFO, Executive Leadership Team and wider business.
• Provide pragmatic advice that balances legal risk, commercial opportunity and the operational realities of the business.
• Translate complex legal matters into clear options and recommendations that enable effective executive decision-making.
• Build strong relationships across the organisation and establish Legal as an enabling, solutions-oriented business partner.
• Identify emerging legal and regulatory risks and ensure appropriate mitigation and escalation.
• Develop the legal capability and infrastructure required to support Beaufort as the Group grows in scale, complexity and geographic reach.

Commercial & Contractual

• Lead or advise on the negotiation and management of material commercial agreements, including customer, supplier, strategic partner, distribution, consultancy, confidentiality and other business contracts, leases and intellectual property agreements.
• Provide legal support on significant customer and supplier negotiations, including contractual risk allocation, liability, indemnities, warranties and intellectual property.
• Establish appropriate contracting standards, templates and approval principles across the Group.
• Support commercial teams in resolving contractual issues and disputes pragmatically and at the earliest appropriate stage.
• Ensure significant contractual commitments are appropriately reviewed and understood before execution.

M&A and Corporate Development

• Provide legal leadership and support for acquisitions, disposals, investments, joint ventures and other strategic transactions.
• Partner with the CEO, CFO, senior leadership, shareholders and external advisers during transaction processes.
• Coordinate and/or undertake legal due diligence, identifying material legal risks and ensuring these are appropriately reflected in transaction decision-making.
• Support the preparation, review and negotiation of transaction documentation alongside external legal advisers.
• Advise on confidentiality agreements, heads of terms, exclusivity arrangements and other preliminary transaction documentation.
• Support the transaction process from initial evaluation through diligence, signing and completion.
• Work with functional and business leaders to ensure legal and regulatory matters identified through diligence are translated into clear post-acquisition integration actions.
• Support the development of a repeatable legal diligence and integration framework as Beaufort's M&A activity develops.

Corporate Governance

• Advise the business on corporate governance matters and support the maintenance of appropriate Group governance and company secretarial matters.
• Support corporate restructuring, entity management and other corporate activities.
• Provide legal input into Board and shareholder matters where required.
• Support the maintenance and protection of appropriate delegated authorities, approvals and governance frameworks.
• Work closely with Finance, People and other Group functions on matters requiring cross-functional governance.

Risk, Compliance & Regulatory

• Maintain oversight of significant legal and regulatory risks affecting the Group.
• Advise on relevant compliance requirements arising from Beaufort's international operations and customer base.
• Support appropriate policies, controls and awareness relating to areas such as anti-bribery and corruption, competition law, sanctions and export controls, data privacy and other applicable regulatory requirements, working with specialist advisers or internal owners where appropriate.
• Support investigations or regulatory matters where legal input is required.
• Ensure appropriate escalation of significant legal or compliance risks to executive leadership.

Disputes & Claims

• Advise on material contractual disputes, claims and potential litigation.
• Develop commercially appropriate dispute-resolution strategies.
• Manage external counsel on litigation or specialist matters where appropriate.
• Balance protection of Beaufort's legal position with commercial, financial and reputational considerations.

External Counsel & Legal Spend

• Own and coordinate Beaufort's relationships with external law firms and specialist legal advisers.
• Determine when matters should be managed internally and when specialist external advice is required.
• Ensure external legal advice is appropriately scoped and commercially managed.
• Maintain oversight of external legal spend and drive value from the Group's legal advisor relationships.

Essential

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Qualified solicitor/legal counsel with appropriate professional standing in the UK or another relevant jurisdiction.
• Significant post-qualification experience gained within a strong commercial environment, ideally combining private practice and in-house experience.
• Broad commercial and corporate legal experience with the ability to operate as the principal legal adviser within an organisation.
• Strong experience drafting and negotiating complex commercial contracts.
• Experience supporting M&A transactions, including legal due diligence, transaction documentation and working with external corporate/M&A advisers.
• Strong understanding of corporate governance and commercial risk management.
• Experience working with senior executives and providing clear advice on complex or sensitive matters.
• Experience managing external counsel and legal expenditure.
• Experience managing people.
• Comfortable operating across international jurisdictions and knowing when local specialist advice is required.

Desirable

• Experience within defence, aerospace, manufacturing, engineering or another highly regulated international industry.
• Experience working within a private equity-backed business or similarly fast-paced, value-creation-focused environment.
• Experience supporting buy-and-build or acquisitive growth strategies.
• Exposure to post-acquisition integration.
• Knowledge of regulatory matters relevant to international defence and aerospace businesses.
• Previous experience establishing or developing an in-house legal capability within a growing organisation.

Personal Attributes

The Successful Candidate Will Be

• Commercially minded: able to distinguish between theoretical legal risk and risk that genuinely matters to the business.
• Pragmatic: focused on finding workable solutions rather than simply identifying problems.
• Credible: comfortable advising and, where necessary, constructively challenging senior executives.
• Hands-on: willing to personally manage detailed legal work as well as advise strategically.
• Independent: capable of operating effectively as the organisation's senior internal legal professional.
• Decisive: able to provide clear recommendations despite incomplete information or competing priorities.
• Collaborative: able to build trust across functions, geographies and cultures.
• Commercially curious: interested in understanding the economics and strategic rationale behind business decisions rather than viewing issues solely through a legal lens.
• Comfortable with pace and complexity: able to support a growing international organisation where priorities can change quickly.

Success Measures

• High-quality, timely legal advice that enables rather than unnecessarily constrains commercial decision-making.
• Effective management of material contractual and legal risk.
• Strong support for strategic transactions and successful execution of M&A activity.
• Early identification and resolution of material legal risks during acquisition due diligence.
• Effective translation of transaction diligence findings into post-deal integration activity.
• Improved consistency and discipline in contracting and legal governance across the Group.
• Strong relationships and credibility with executive and operational leadership.
• Effective management of external advisers and legal expenditure.

Benefits

• 33 days holiday (including public holidays)
• Additional day off for your birthday
• Hybrid working policy
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Life Assurance up to 4x salary
• Pension scheme
• Training & professional development opportunities
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Reward & Recognition scheme