director, Global Legal Operations

Now Brewing - director, Global Legal Operations! #tobeapartner

From the beginning, Starbucks set out to be a different kind of company. One that not only celebrated coffee and the rich tradition, but that also brought a feeling of connection. We are known for developing extraordinary leaders who share this passion and are guided by their service to others.

As the Global Legal Operations Director, you will be the senior operating leader responsible for turning Legal strategy into disciplined execution and measurable results. You will partner closely with the Vice President, Legal Strategy & Operations, the Chief Legal Officer, Legal leadership, Finance, Procurement, Technology, and other enterprise partners to build and run a scalable, data-driven, technology-enabled operating model for a complex, multinational retail and manufacturing enterprise. You will lead the day-to-day Legal Operations function, develop a high-performing team, strengthen financial discipline and cost predictability, modernize technology and data, simplify how work gets done, and ensure transformation initiatives move from strategy through implementation, adoption, and sustained business impact.

As a director, global legal operations, you will…

• Lead Global Legal Operating Model & Execution: Translate Legal and enterprise strategy into a prioritized operating roadmap with clear owners, milestones, dependencies, measures of success, and accountability. Design, implement, and continuously improve a scalable global legal operating model, and personally drive priority initiatives from concept through implementation, adoption, and measurable results.

• Own Financial Management, Spend & Outside Counsel Performance: Run the operational discipline behind Legal budgeting, forecasting, accruals, invoice management, matter budgets, variance analysis, and spend controls. Improve forecast accuracy and cost predictability. Operationalize the preferred provider program through panel governance, rate and fee negotiations, value-based arrangements, matter budgeting, billing compliance, performance scorecards, and active management of firm and vendor relationships.

• Drive Legal Technology, Data, Analytics & AI: Own the Legal technology roadmap and rationalization of the technology portfolio. Optimize matter management, e-billing, CLM, workflow automation, reporting, and other legal platforms; improve integration with enterprise systems; establish reliable data governance; automate manual work; and responsibly deploy AI and emerging technology where it creates measurable efficiency, insight, or risk-management value.

• Build Process Excellence, Service Delivery & Global Standardization: Simplify, standardize, and automate core Legal processes across regions. Establish clear process ownership, service levels, controls, playbooks, and best-practice workflows. Measure cycle time, adoption, compliance, and stakeholder experience, and use the results to drive continuous improvement across the Legal department.

• Run Legal Operations & Service Delivery: Own the day-to-day performance of the Legal Operations function, including matter management, e-billing, accruals, invoice processing, vendor and law firm onboarding, reporting, records, contract operations, intake and workflows, and operational support. Establish an operating cadence that surfaces risks early, resolves issues quickly, and gives leadership clear visibility into performance.

• Build & Lead a High-Performing Team: Lead, coach, and develop the Legal Operations team. Clarify roles, decision rights, goals, and performance expectations; align capacity to the highest-value work; build succession and development plans; and create a culture of ownership, collaboration, continuous improvement, and follow-through.

• Drive Transformation & Change Adoption: Lead a focused portfolio of transformation initiatives with clear business cases, milestones, owners, benefits, and measures of success. Partner with stakeholders to drive adoption, address resistance, retire legacy ways of working, and ensure new processes and tools produce sustained results rather than one-time deliverables.

• Create Actionable Metrics & Executive Insights: Establish a concise set of KPIs and dashboards that give Legal leadership timely visibility into spend, forecast, workload, service delivery, operational risk, technology adoption, outside counsel performance, and transformation progress. Turn data into recommendations, decisions, and accountability rather than reporting for reporting's sake.

• Partner Across the Legal department and the Enterprise: Serve as a trusted operating partner to Legal leaders and cross-functional stakeholders. Anticipate needs, connect work across teams, resolve operational friction, and ensure Legal Operations enables lawyers to focus on the highest-value legal and business work.

We’d love to hear from people with:

• 12+ years of progressive legal operations, business operations, transformation, consulting, finance, procurement, technology, or in-house legal leadership experience, including significant experience in a complex global organization. Experience supporting a publicly traded company is strongly preferred.

• Deep expertise in legal technology, data, analytics, process design, and automation, including matter management, e-billing, CLM, workflow automation, enterprise integrations, dashboards, and the practical application of AI or emerging technology to legal work.

• Proven financial and commercial acumen, with hands-on ownership of complex legal budgets, forecasting, accruals, e-billing, outside counsel spend, vendor management, rate negotiations, matter budgets, and value-based fee arrangements. Demonstrated ability to improve cost predictability and convert spend data into decisions and action.

• Exceptional people leadership, change management, and cross-enterprise collaboration skills, with the executive presence and business acumen to influence senior lawyers and executives, challenge constructively, make decisions, and drive transformation across global teams. Must be an operator who creates clarity, establishes accountability, removes barriers, and consistently closes the loop.

• Demonstrated track record of building and improving Legal Operations capabilities, with quantifiable results such as improved forecast accuracy, reduced external spend or invoice cycle time, increased technology adoption, reduced manual work, faster process cycle times, or improved stakeholder satisfaction.

• Proven people-management experience leading multidisciplinary teams across operations, technology, data, project management, and process improvement, with evidence of developing talent and raising team performance.

• Demonstrated ability to move from strategy to execution. Candidates should be able to show examples of diagnosing an operational problem, designing a practical solution, implementing it, driving adoption, measuring results, and sustaining the change.

• Highly effective at prioritization and portfolio management, with the judgment to distinguish urgent work from important work, stop lower-value activity, allocate resources thoughtfully, and deliver multiple complex initiatives without losing operational control.

• A service-oriented leadership style combined with high standards, intellectual curiosity, sound judgment, resilience, and a bias for action. Comfortable operating in ambiguity while creating structure, transparency, and momentum.

As a Starbucks partner, you (and your family) will have access to medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, and other voluntary insurance benefits. Partners have access to short-term and long-term disability, paid parental leave, family expansion reimbursement, paid vacation from date of hire*, sick time (accrued at 1 hour for every 25 hours worked), eight paid holidays, and two personal days per year. Starbucks also offers eligible partners participation in a 401(k) retirement plan with employer match, a discounted company stock program (S.I.P.), Starbucks equity program (Bean Stock), incentivized emergency savings, and financial well-being tools. Additionally, Starbucks offers 100% upfront tuition coverage for a first-time bachelor’s degree through Arizona State University’s online program via the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, student loan management resources, and access to other educational opportunities. You will also have access to backup care and DACA reimbursement. Starbucks will comply with any applicable state and local laws regarding employee leave benefits, including, but not limited to providing time off pursuant to the Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, and in accordance with its plans and policies. This list is subject to change depending on collective bargaining in locations where partners have a certified bargaining representative. For additional information regarding partner perks and more detailed information about benefits, go to starbucksbenefits.com.

*If you are working in CA, CO, IL, LA, ME, MA, NE, ND or RI, you will accrue vacation up to a maximum of 120 hours (190 in CA) for roles below director and 200 hours (316 in CA) for roles at director or above. For roles in other states, you will be granted vacation time starting at 120 hours annually for roles below director and 200 hours annually for roles director and above.

The actual base pay offered to the successful candidate will be based on multiple factors, including but not limited to job-related knowledge/skills, experience, geographical location, and internal equity. At Starbucks, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at the high end of the range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.

We believe we do our best work when we're together, which is why we're onsite four days a week.

Join us and inspire with every cup. Apply today!

Starbucks Coffee Company is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Qualified applicants with criminal histories will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with all federal, state and local ordinances.

Starbucks Coffee Company is committed to offering reasonable accommodations to job applicants with disabilities. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please contact us at [email protected] or 1(888) 611-2258.