Regional General Counsel, NA

About CDP

CDP is a global non-profit that runs the world’s only independent environmental disclosure system. As the founder of environmental reporting, we believe in transparency and the power of data to drive change.

Partnering with leaders in enterprise, capital, policy and science, we surface the information needed to enable Earth-positive decisions. We helped more than 24,800 companies and almost 1,000 cities, states and regions disclose their environmental impacts in 2024. Financial institutions with more than a quarter of the world’s institutional assets use CDP data to help inform investment and lending decisions.

Our team is truly global, united by our shared desire to build a world where people, planet and profit are balanced. Visit cdp.net or follow us @CDP to find out more.

The Team:

The Regional General Counsel Team Provides legal advice and oversight within a specific geographic area for our organization. The North American General Counsel acts as a key legal advisor for the region, managing legal risks and ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations. They collaborate with regional leadership  to support business objectives and growth. Additionally, the purpose of the Regional Counsel Team is to support the Board of Directors of the regional entity and local teams with high quality legal advice, triage issues locally and work collaboratively with wider legal team to obtain support from the Shared Services and Global Centers of Excellence.

About this role:
The Regional General Counsel, NA will have regional accountability for CDP’s regulatory and legal compliance, providing extensive legal advice and guidance to local teams and the Board of Directors of the regional entity to enable informed decision making. In addition, the Regional General Counsel, NA, will be the central point of contact for all legal matters for their region. They will need to work seamlessly with their colleagues and centers of global expertise and shared services.

What you will do:

• Lead on the regional implementation of CDP's strategy and approach for legal, to enable the operational effectiveness of the global legal function
• Ensure that the appropriate members of the Directorate are briefed on any existing or emerging issues or risks
• Contribute to the creation and maintenance of precedents, template agreements, playbooks and know how
• Guide the Grant and Development teams, provide legal advice on Grant arrangements, Service Agreements and other philanthropic engagements to support these teams to obtain external funding (leveraging CDP precedents/templates maintained by the Head of Commercial Legal’s team)
• Draft, negotiate and support the Grant and Development team in engagement with sponsorship arrangements with governments, regulatory bodies and other sponsors to deliver partnerships for CDP projects that deliver its mission (leveraging CDP precedents/templates maintained by the Head of Commercial Legal’s team)
• Work across the Regional Counsel Team and with the Head of Commercial Legal to prepare and deliver handbooks and training on grant arrangements including standard inter-group arrangements for sub-grants, working with the finance team to ensure that all arrangements are tax effective and appropriately documented
• Collaborate with other teams involved in innovation, change, and ecosystem partnerships to ensure that legal risks are understood and mitigated for funding opportunity approval and new project initiatives
• Maximize on the deployment of legal resources within the region, leverage the expertise within the global legal function effectively and provide guidance to regional stakeholders enabling delivery of CDP’s mission
• Work closely with the global centers of expertise to implement internal policies, processes, procedures, and training on a regional level; to ensure regions are effectively supported
• Lead on all corporate/charitable governance matters relating to the entities established within the region (US 501(3)(c)) including interacting with Board of Directors of the regional entity as necessary and appropriate
• Work with the Company Secretariat or local company secretarial services to act as a gatekeeper and advocate of the CDP governance framework
• Advise and support effective systems regionally to ensure compliance and adherence to data privacy requirements, and other statutory local rules to minimise CDP’s exposure
• Keep the CLO informed, manage litigation and dispute resolution processes within region in order to assess and recommended appropriate courses of action
• Drive legal compliance within region with applicable laws, regulations, and regional standards; to ensure alignment within the global legal function