Senior Legal Counsel - Corporate

Tesco UK; Welwyn Garden City; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading supermarket and tech company in Welwyn Garden City is seeking a corporate lawyer to advise on M&A and commercial transactions. This role involves supporting corporate governance and collaborating on strategic projects. The ideal candidate should be a qualified lawyer with strong commercial experience and exceptional interpersonal skills. The company offers flexible working arrangements to ensure a work-life balance.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Qualifications

• A qualified lawyer with varied corporate M&A and commercial experience is required.
• Strong interpersonal skills are necessary to build credibility with stakeholders.
• Candidates should demonstrate sound risk judgement and collaborative skills.

Responsibilities

• Advise on corporate, commercial, and M&A transactions.
• Support corporate governance matters.
• Collaborate with various teams to deliver strategic projects.

Skills

Corporate M&A experience

Commercial experience

Interpersonal skills

Risk judgement

Education

Qualified lawyer

Job description

Overview

This is an excellent opportunity for a commercially minded corporate lawyer to join our highly regarded legal team, working on a broad range of corporate, M&A and commercial partnership matters across the UK and the wider Group. You will play a key role in supporting the Group on corporate strategy, M&A activity, joint ventures, and strategic partnerships. Working closely with Group Corporate Development, you will provide legal guidance on opportunity assessments, draft and negotiate Heads of Terms, renegotiate partnership agreements, and manage traditional M&A transactions. With high visibility to senior stakeholders and external law firms, you will be involved in high-profile, often complex projects; recent examples include the sale of our Tesco Banking businesses and the acquisition of the Venus wine group. This diverse workload offers the chance to influence strategy and deliver legally robust solutions while demonstrating excellent commercial judgment. The hiring manager for this vacancy is Lauren Cox.

Responsibilities

• Advising, influencing, and supporting the delivery of corporate, commercial, M&A transactions, joint ventures, and partnerships across the Group.
• Supporting on corporate governance matters and collaborating with the Group Company Secretariat on internal legal and governance issues.
• Partnering with colleagues in Corporate Development, Strategy, Finance, Tax, and Investor Relations to deliver strategic projects.
• Working cross-functionally with teams across the wider Group Legal function.
• Staying curious and horizon scanning externally to anticipate trends, opportunities, and risks that may shape our plans and their execution.

Qualifications

• A qualified lawyer, who possesses a wide variety of corporate M&A experience, as well as commercial experience, given the variety of work within the role.
• A proactive, self-starting approach, with the ability to learn quickly and work independently.
• Strong interpersonal skills to build credibility and trust with senior internal stakeholders and external partners.
• The ability to remain calm, collaborative, and effective in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment.
• Sound risk judgement, with a clear focus on what matters most to the business.

About Tesco and flexible working

You might know us as a supermarket, technology company or even for our award-winning mobile network. Truth is, we’re all of those things, and much more. Our colleagues work with one goal in mind, helping to make every day a little better for our customers, colleagues and communities all over the world. No two customers are the same, neither are our colleagues.

At Tesco, we champion a balance that lets you thrive both in and out of work. Spend 60% of your week collaborating with colleagues at our office locations or local sites and the rest remotely. Whether you're just kicking off your career, juggling passions, or navigating big life events, we're here to support you. We always welcome a conversation about flexible working, so talk to us throughout your application about how we can support.

We're proud to be an accredited Disability Confident Leader, where everyone’s welcome. That’s why we commit to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process. If you need support with your application, click here for more information. And if you're interested in joining our team but don't tick every box, don't let that hold you back from applying.