Senior Legal Counsel, Specialized Nutrition

About the job

Are you an experienced lawyer who can manage and progress multiple, diverse workstreams in parallel, adding tangible value to the business in a highly matrixed, global organisation?

This role is within Danone’s Global Legal & Compliance team for Specialized Nutrition (SNU), based at SNU’s Global HQ, Danone Place Amsterdam (Hoofddorp). SNU is Danone’s health-focused business dedicated to delivering science-based nutritional solutions for vulnerable populations, including infants, patients, and people with specific medical or age-related nutritional needs.

You will work closely with the Head of Legal & Compliance, SNU, and senior leaders across the relevant Global business, regulatory, legal, and cross functional teams. The role combines ownership of complex, high-risk legal matters with active project leadership, helping the business deliver its Early Life Nutrition (ELN) and Medical Nutrition (MN) objectives while navigating a regulated, fast-moving and often ambiguous environment.

Success in this role requires the ability to operate in grey areas, balance competing priorities, and translate legal input into practical solutions that enable progress and support business outcomes.

Your mandate is to:

• Lead and coordinate complex legal matters of strategic importance to SNU, including litigation, investigations, regulatory engagement and sensitive risk situations, across multiple jurisdictions.
• Drive and support projects that deliver value to the business, acting as a legal project leader as well as adviser.
• Act as a strategic legal enabler for ELN and MN priorities, supporting growth, innovation and value-creation initiatives in line with business targets.
• Operate effectively within a highly matrixed organisation, juggling multiple priorities and ensuring alignment, consistency and momentum across global, regional and local stakeholders.
• Oversee corporate governance for relevant Dutch holding companies, ensuring robust, compliant and efficient governance structures.

Key responsibilities:

Leadership on complex legal matters & disputes

• Take senior ownership of complex and sensitive matters, including litigation, claims, investigations and escalated regulatory issues.
• Coordinate global and local legal workstreams, ensuring consistent strategy, messaging and risk positioning across jurisdictions and functions.
• Manage and challenge external counsel in alignment with Danone’s legal strategy.
• Distil complex scientific, regulatory and factual issues into clear legal options and decision points for senior leadership.
• Support leadership teams with pragmatic recommendations on high-stakes issues.

Strategic business partnership – ELN & MN

• Act as a senior legal business partner to global ELN and Medical Nutrition teams, including Healthcare & Channels, Market Access and Innovation.
• Drive forward strategic projects and programmes, often in parallel, ensuring legal input supports progress and value creation rather than slows delivery.
• Support initiatives such as disease-related nutrition, life-stage nutrition, HCP engagement models, evidence-based programmes, data-driven and digital solutions, and strategic partnerships.
• Provide input on go-to-market models, medical and scientific substantiation, claims positioning and risk appetite, balancing innovation with regulatory and ethical expectations.
• Navigate global alignment and local regulatory reality, particularly in high-risk, high-visibility or high-growth markets.

Contracts, transactions & commercial enablement

• Lead the review of complex contracts and commercial arrangements, including strategic partnerships, innovation collaborations, supply and service agreements, and healthcare-related engagements.

Compliance, integrity & regulated topics

• Provide senior legal oversight on compliance and integrity matters, embedding ethical and compliant ways of working into business activity.
• Advise on and support matters relating to data privacy, antitrust / competition law, medtech and regulated digital initiatives, applying a pragmatic, risk-based approach.
• Partner closely with Compliance, Medical and QFS teams on healthcare ethics, interactions with healthcare stakeholders, anti-bribery and corruption, and third-party risk management.
• Support the development and application of policies, guidance and training, ensuring they are practical, proportionate and business-relevant.

Corporate governance & ways of working

• Lead corporate governance for Dutch holding companies, including board and shareholder meetings, resolutions, governance frameworks and ongoing compliance.
• Work with senior stakeholders across SNU and the General Secretary function in a matrixed, multi-disciplinary environment.
• Provide clear, structured briefings, decision memos and legal input that support timely decision-making.
• Build strong working relationships across functions, bringing energy and momentum to legal workstreams.

Key deliverables & outcomes:

• Progress and resolution of complex legal matters through clear strategy and effective coordination.
• Legal input that enables projects to move forward while appropriately managing risk.
• Successful delivery of ELN and MN initiatives within agreed risk appetite, timelines and business objectives.
• Well-run corporate governance for Dutch holding entities.
• Practical tools, frameworks and guidance that improve execution, consistency and efficiency.

About you

You are an experienced legal professional who:

• Brings 10–14+ years’ professional experience, including senior roles in a multinational and ideally a regulated environment.
• Interest in and understands healthcare, life sciences, nutrition or similarly regulated sectors.
• Has experience handling complex, sensitive or high-risk legal matters and is comfortable making judgement calls with incomplete information.
• Has international litigation experience and has worked across a broad legal spectrum, including data privacy, antitrust / competition, medtech, and integrity / anti-bribery and corruption.
• Is able to juggle multiple, very different topics at the same time, shifting between strategic and hands-on work as needed.
• Is comfortable operating in the grey, prioritising, and keeping momentum in a fast-moving environment.
• Brings energy, curiosity and a clear desire to make an impact.
• Communicates clearly in English; additional languages are an advantage.

About Danone

Working at Danone is a unique experience. It’s fast-paced and complex and, at times, it can get a little challenging. But it’s packed with opportunities to learn and grow working with some of the best-known brands in the world, like Evian, Alpro, Nutricia, Activia and Nutrilon. Bring your unique perspective, ambitions and entrepreneurial ideas to the table – the impact you could make might just surprise you.

We’re proud to be a B-Corp certified company. That means we meet the highest verified standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability in everything we do.

We Offer

It’s an exciting time to join Danone! And the best part? You’ll be supported to grow an impactful career that you can be proud of. Together, we’ll build a healthier world.

All Danoners receive a complete package of benefits. This includes a competitive salary and yearly bonus, a premium free pension and great discounts on health insurance and Danone products. We understand the importance of flexibility and offer 30 days of annual leave (with the opportunity to purchase more) and a hybrid working environment, where you can work either from home or from one of our People Hubs in Hoofddorp, Utrecht and Rijswijk.