Within the AXA GIE, the purpose of the Group Legal Department is to advise the Group on material legal risks and strategic legal decisions including on major Group projects and litigation as well as to lead the legal professional family and develop the Group legal strategy. 

However, Helen Browne, the Group’s General Counsel, also chairs the Group Audit Risk & Compliance Committee and she is on the Board of XLICSE and AXA SA. The role will be supporting Helen Browne on mostly non-legal matters. She also heads up the Legal Family with a leadership team of 15 GCs.

The Group Legal department is organized into 4 teams (27 people mostly based in Paris): 

• Corporate Finance & Investments: Manages the legal aspects of AXA SA and its subsidiaries’ financial transactions: capital increases and capital market transactions and programs; banking transactions; M&A financing; structured reinsurance transactions; share buy backs and derivatives; insider dealing procedure; and listed company processes and regulations, legal aspects of Group communications and investments.

• Corporate Governance: Advises on company law and governance matters for AXA SA, and its direct subsidiaries; organizes AXA SA Board, Board committees and shareholder meetings; sets corporate governance standards and policies; and advises senior management and the Board on duties and responsibilities, as well as executive remuneration. 

• M&A: Structures/executes M&A (acquisition, disposal, JVs, major distribution arrangements); advises on ongoing relationships with JVs, corporate restructurings, internal restructurings.

• Strategic Projects/Trademarks/Litigations & ESG : legal brand/ trademark protection and licensing of the trademark. Advises on strategic investments and partnerships; legal support to the innovation business unit; advises on Solvency II and other regulatory, compliance and corporate law issues. 

ENVIRONMENT AND CHALLENGES:

Support to the Group General Counsel, who is a member of the Group Management Committee and reports directly to the Deputy CEO. The GCC is also member of AXA SA Board as representative of shareholders employees, Chairperson of the Group Audit Risk & Compliance Committee, member of the XLICSE Board (European & Asian insurance Carier of AXA XL division).

The Chief of Staff will support Helen on ad hoc board matters and will be secretary to the ARCC. In providing support to the Group General Counsel, you will work closely with all members of the Group Legal team to coordinate efforts and facilitate teamwork across the department. However, there will be coordination with many Group functions in relation to the ARCC and also with entities. In particular, the Chief of staff will interact with Heads of other Professional families and their Chieves of Staff on a regular basis.

The range of responsibilities will be extensive, often very confidential. The Legal Executive Assistant acts as a key contact for internal and external stakeholders of the department, responding, dealing or transferring requests to relevant team members.

The Legal Executive Assistant contributes to the definition of the function strategy as a member of the DJC Management Team (with the other HB direct reports), and will support the professional family.

MAIN ACTIVITIES

In addition to managing any ad hoc requests of the Group General Counsel, the responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Committees & Boards:
  • Coordinate the preparation of ARCC meetings and draft minutes (20% of time);
  • Provide synthesis before XLICSE Board meetings;
  • Represent the General Counsel at Group Committees as required (eg. AXA SA Non Financial Risk Committee, IFC Committee, others), attend meetings and take follow-up actions •
• Internal & External Events: Provide inputs and assist in the preparation of the main internal and external meetings, organise and prepare materials, eg. Townhalls.
•  Animation of the legal professional family (ca. 700 lawyers worldwide):
  • Coordinate the Legal Leadership Team, including the organization of the two to four Legal Leadership team meetings per annum, facilitate meetings and trainings of the Legal Department
  • Coordinate the legal mentoring program o Develop, maintain and enhance the legal professional sharepoint
• 2nd & 3rd lines of defense:
  • Coordinate all internal processes and procedures for the Legal Department (eg. Internal Control, Operational Risk, Internal Audit) and work with respective Legal Teams and corresponding departments on implementation, testing and reporting on time.
  • Act as Group Legal Data Referent responsible for promoting of a data protection culture with the Legal Department in line with the Group’s strategy; be the primary contact of the Data Protection Officer (DPO) within the GIE AXA; support the Legal Department to be accountable and ensure data protection for its scope
• Global Panel of Legal Firms:
  • Key point of contact responsible, with other direct reports, for managing the relationship with the 17 international legal firms member of the global panel
  • Manage conflict of interest waiver requests with relevant local legal teams;
  • Coordinate with Group procurement the panel renewal (every 3 years)
• Budget & Procurement:
  • Coordinate budget preparation, follow-up & reporting to finance teams, including management of the costs of external service providers;
  • Approve Purchase Orders requests
• HR: Contribute to human resources management of the Legal Professional Family (recruitment, management of external providers, trainees, team communication etc.)

Capabilities

• Experience in a multicultural context.
• Embraces the challenges of multicultural work
• Good business acumen: understanding of the strategic issues facing the Group with understanding of the Industry and the Group
• Driven/highly motivated, autonomous with enthusiasm for new areas of expertise, needs agility to work outside own comfort zone and pick up and analyse new topics quickly as required by the General Counsel
• Demonstrated leadership abilities to influence stakeholders
• Analytical and synthesizing skills, e.g. ability to draw conclusions and make recommendations - Internal control/risk competencies to implement policies and design processes
• Team player with ability to influence and federate across departments/ the Group (One AXA)
• Client driven and pragmatic, action-oriented, delivery-focused mindset with strong proven project management skills
• High degree of rigor and reliability, combining good analytical skills with the ability to summarize and select relevant information - Excellent communication skills (written and oral), with the ability to document and present information in a concise and business-oriented manner (e.g. for senior management)
• Ability to interact with a variety of different correspondents (in operating entities, within and outside the Group, etc.) in a multi-cultural context
• Ability to deal with high volume and highly complex workload
• Ability to prioritize and deal with conflicting priorities daily using discretion and professionalism at all times - Negotiation skills to deal with external vendors - Financial budget process knowledge
• Fully fluent in English (oral and written); French desirable but not mandatory
• Good practice of MS Office suite, especially advanced Excel and PowerPoint skills