Director, EMEA Employment Legal in London

Your primary responsibility will be to manage the daily operations of the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Employment Legal team and provide strategy, direction, and vision for its growth, improvement and continued success. The team, which is based in various EMEA countries, provides employment legal advice on a wide range of topics across the region, including general advice and counsel, litigation, HR compliance projects, trade unions, Works Council and European Works Council issues, regulatory issues, mergers and acquisitions, and employment legal issues connected to Google’s commercial agreements and extended workforce.

Your aim will be to lead, inspire and develop the team. You will create an environment in which all team members feel supported and able to provide advice that enables Google to operate and achieve consistency and compliance with local employment law, regulations and practice, whilst at the same time recognizing the flexible and innovative place it strives to be. You will work closely with HR, business and legal colleagues in Google offices around the world.

Minimum qualifications:

• 15 years of experience as a EMEA employment lawyer or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience advising multinational corporations on the type of employment law issues that are the primary responsibility of EMEA Employment Legal either in-house (including secondments) or at a law firm.
• People management experience or experience leading successful teams in other ways (i.e. cross‑functional project teams).

Preferred qualifications:

• Knowledge of employment law and experience managing employment law issues in multiple jurisdictions in EMEA.
• Experience working in a regional employment legal role and on HR projects across multiple jurisdictions, and ability to identify issues, manage matters independently and with minimal supervision.
• Proven ability to leverage technology for increased efficiency, cost management, and workflow innovation.
• Excellent communication skills, and ability to communicate difficult legal concepts concisely.
• Strong organizational, project management, and execution skills with a collaborative and flexible approach when partnering with others.
• Excellent analytical and problem‑solving capabilities, sometimes in the face of unknowns.

Responsibilities:

• Provide practical and business‑minded legal advice to senior stakeholders across Google on a variety of employment legal topics.
• Provide people management, including team development and recruitment of new team members.
• Act as the team’s sounding board, escalation point, bureaucracy buster and decision maker on challenging questions.
• Contribute to collaboration and knowledge sharing with your regional peers and across the global team, helping develop the global strategy, and implementing that in EMEA.
• Identify and implement scaling, efficient and process improvements for EMEA Employment Legal’s daily legal activities, including the use of AI, and other practice improvement projects that can be leveraged globally where possible.
• Manage EMEA Employment Legal’s relationships with outside counsel and other providers, act like an owner, and advocate for the team, embracing responsibility for all aspects of its performance and success.