Head of Legal in Aberdeen

About The Role
What if your expertise in legal, risk, or assurance could shape how we navigate complex challenges at scale? You could be embedding excellence and credibility that protects and empowers our mission to end the devastation of dementia.
About the opportunity
As Head of Legal, Risk and Assurance, you\'ll lead three critical disciplines that form the backbone of trust, safety, and risk-informed decision-making at Alzheimer\'s Society. This is a people-focused leadership role within our Finance & Assurance directorate, overseeing professional teams delivering legal, risk management, and assurance services. You\'ll bring these areas together as one team, joining the dots to create real impact through compassionate, strategic leadership.
We\'re in the midst of an ambitious transformation programme, and you\'ll play a central role in ensuring this change is embedded effectively. Working in close partnership with management and trustees, you\'ll be a senior, credible, and visible voice. Influencing decisions, elevating standards, and building a culture where risk awareness and legal clarity empower rather than constrain our work.
This role brings together three disciplines, each led by experienced subject matter experts who will report into you. We\'re not expecting you to be an expert in all three areas. However, you should have significant professional experience in at least one, with strong knowledge and curiosity about the others. Above all, this is a people-focused position. Your ability to lead, develop, and inspire your teams, and those around you, will be just as important as your technical expertise.
If you\'re a strategic leader who thrives on building relationships, driving continuous improvement, and creating lasting impact in a cause-driven environment, we\'d love to hear from you.
About you:
You\'re an accomplished leader with proven experience in legal, risk, or assurance. You\'ll bring both technical credibility and a track record of effective stakeholder management and people leadership. You\'re passionate about developing others, building high-performing teams, and creating an environment where professionals can thrive. You understand that when risk, legal, and audit is done best, it\'s done in collaboration. Keeping the end goal in mind, and enabling the best possible decisions that protect what matters most.
You\'ll have:

• Professional qualification in at least one discipline (qualified lawyer, risk professional, and/or chartered internal auditor) with demonstrable knowledge across legal, risk, and assurance areas.
• Significant line management experience, with a track record of leading, coaching, and developing teams through periods of change and growth.
• Proven ability to work in partnership with senior stakeholders, including trustees and executive leadership, providing clear, valuable, and risk-based guidance.
• Experience overseeing professional services that are visible, valued, and proactively consulted across an organisation.
• Strong communication and influencing skills, able to challenge constructively while building strong relationships, and translate complex technical matters into clear guidance for diverse audiences.
• A collaborative mindset and evidenced ability to drive continuous improvement, bringing best practice from across sectors to elevate standards and maturity.

What you\'ll focus on:

• Leading the legal, risk, and assurance teams, creating a culture of high performance, continuous learning, and professional excellence.
• Working in close partnership with executive management and trustees. Providing strategic advice and reporting on legal matters, risk landscape, and assurance findings to inform critical decisions.
• Driving forward our transformation programme, ensuring governance frameworks support rather than hinder change, and that legal, risk, and assurance considerations are embedded from the outset.
• Elevating the profile and maturity of all three disciplines. Making them visible partners across directorates and ensuring they\'re proactively consulted on key initiatives rather than brought in as an afterthought.
• Overseeing the facilitation of robust risk management systems, leading comprehensive assurance programmes, and ensuring legal services are professional, credible, and responsive to organisational needs.
• Managing departmental budgets, resource allocation, and capacity planning to ensure your teams can deliver first-class services that enable the Society\'s strategic objectives.
• Building and maintaining impactful external networks, using horizon scanning and sector best practice to keep the Society ahead of emerging risks and regulatory changes.
• Deputising for the Associate Director Risk and Assurance as required, representing Finance & Assurance at senior forums.

Can you see yourself as a trusted partner who helps Alzheimer\'s Society navigate complexity with confidence? Are you ready to lead teams where legal, risk, and assurance considerations are increasingly incorporated into decision-making? Can you join the dots between these disciplines to ensure the joint outcomes protect and enhance our ability to transform lives affected by dementia?
To be successful in this position, you may have existing experience in the following roles; Head of Internal Audit, Head of Risk Management, Head of Internal Audit and Risk, Head of Legal and Risk or other similar roles. We also welcome applicants with transferable skills.
Important Dates
The deadline for applications is 23:59 on Sunday 2nd November 2025.
Interviews will begin week commencing Monday 10th November 2025 and will be a 3 stage interview process which will include a presentation task at 2nd Stage.
About You
About Alzheimer\'s Society
Dementia is the UK\'s biggest killer. One in three people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime.
At Alzheimer\'s Society, we\'re the UK\'s leading dementia charity and the only one to tackle all aspects of dementia by giving help and hope to people living with dementia today and in the future. We give vital support to people facing the most frightening times of their lives, while also funding groundbreaking research and campaigning to make dementia the priority it should be.
Together with our supporters, we\'re working towards a world where dementia no longer devastates lives.
Our values make sure that our focus is clear for the challenges and opportunities ahead and remind us of what we all stand for.
Our commitment to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
We need to ensure the voices around our table better reflect and understand the communities we exist to serve. We strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Alzheimer\'s Society.
We want everyone we work with, as a colleague, volunteer, supporter, or someone we support, to feel included and that they belong at Alzheimer\'s Society.
Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy here along with our internal employee forum and Employee Lived Experience network groups help us promote inclusion and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people.
Our hiring process
During your recruitment process we want to make sure that you bring your whole self and can be at your best. We are working hard to ensure our recruitment process is as inclusive as possible, so please do inform us of your experience and anything you think we could do better by completing our candidate survey when you apply.Please also contact Alzheimer\'s Society Talent Acquisition Team via [email protected] for application support or any adjustments you might need.
To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed. We recognise the benefits of AI, but if you\'re considering using it to submit your application, we encourage you to reflect on the value it truly adds. AI tools often lack the personal touch and authenticity that set candidates apart. We want to hear your unique perspective, experiences, and skills, so we encourage you to showcase them in your own voice.
We try to avoid closing roles early where possible, however if we receive a high volume of applications, we may close earlier than the advertised closing date. Should this occur, we will aim to provide you with at least 48 hours\' notice.
We are committed to safer recruitment and ensuring the welfare of those we work with, due to the nature of some of our roles, we might need to carry out a DBS check at the relevant level.
Giving back to you
Our employees work hard every day to make a true difference in people\'s lives. We are proud to support them with a range of benefits, recognition and many options for working agilely, all contributing to a strong work life balance. We also have various learning programmes to support you in your development and help you grow to realise your potential and shape a career with Alzheimer\'s Society.
You can also visit our Working for Us pages, which give you more information about what it\'s like to be an employee at the Society.

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