Senior Legal Director, Great China

Senior Legal Director, Greater China         

Location: Shanghai, China

Reports To: VP General Counsel, Asia Pacific

Function: Legal

Johnson Controls

Johnson Controls is a global leader in smart, healthy, and sustainable building solutions. We deliver innovation that transforms environments where people live, work, learn, and play. As the global leader in smart, healthy, and sustainable buildings, our mission is to reimagine the performance of buildings to serve people, places, and the planet. Across the Asia Pacific region, Johnson Controls supports customers through technology leadership, operational excellence, and strong governance, while navigating complex regulatory, commercial, and geopolitical environments.

Role Summary

The Senior Legal Director, Greater China serves as the senior legal leader for the region (China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan), providing strategic legal, regulatory, and compliance guidance across all businesses and functions. This role is responsible for protecting the company’s interests, enabling growth, managing risk, and ensuring compliance with applicable laws and regulations across diverse jurisdictions.

The Senior Legal Director, Greater China operates as an integral member of the Asia Pacific legal leadership team, driving regional business priorities in alignment with enterprise-wide legal and business strategy, risk posture, and governance standards. 

The Senior Legal Director, Greater China partners closely with the regional executive team, Asia Pacific legal leadership, and business stakeholders to support commercial execution, M&A activity, governance, and dispute resolution, while fostering and leading a strong culture of integrity, ethics, and compliance.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Legal Leadership

• Develop and execute the Greater China legal strategy aligned with Johnson Controls’ global legal framework and regional business priorities.
• Act as a trusted legal advisor to the Greater China President and regional leadership team.
• Provide clear, commercially pragmatic legal counsel to enable business growth while managing risk.
• Serve as a strategic partner in regional business transformation initiatives.

Corporate Governance & Compliance

• Act as a visible tone-from-the-top leader for integrity, ethical conduct, and speak-up culture across the region.
• Partner with Ethics & Compliance to investigate, manage, and remediate potential compliance issues in the region.
• Ensure effective governance structures across regional entities, including board and statutory compliance.
• Oversee compliance with regional and local laws, including anti-bribery, competition, data privacy, trade compliance, and employment regulations.
• Provide forward-looking legal and regulatory insight on geopolitical developments, trade controls, sanctions, industrial policy, and emerging regulatory regimes, enabling informed strategic decision-making and resilience planning across the region.

Commercial & Operational Support

• Lead legal support for complex commercial agreements, strategic partnerships, and key customer contracts.
• Provide guidance on pricing, sales practices, procurement, and supply chain arrangements.
• Support operations, engineering, and service teams with timely and practical legal advice.
• Review and analyse business transactions in light of internal policies, standard operating procedures, and applicable laws to mitigate risk and ensure compliance with company policies, strategy and applicable laws.

Mergers, Acquisitions & Strategic Transactions

• Provide legal leadership and support the M&A legal function on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures in the region.
• Work with the M&A legal function on regional due diligence, transaction structuring, negotiations, and closing and post-closing legal matters.
• Advise senior business leaders on commercial and regulatory risks associated with regional transactions, coordinating risk management strategies and ensuring compliance with corporate policies and standards.

Dispute Management & Litigation

• Partner with Litigation team to manage regional litigation, arbitration, and dispute resolution matters.
• Partner with the VP General Counsel, Asia Pacific and Litigation to select and oversee external counsel, ensuring cost-effective and high-quality legal representation.
• Drive proactive risk mitigation to reduce litigation exposure.

Leadership & Team Development

• Lead, develop, and mentor a high-performing regional legal team.
• Build a strong regional legal talent pipeline through active succession planning, capability development, and exposure of high-potential talent to enterprise-level initiatives.
• Foster collaboration across countries, business units, and legal functions.
• Champion Johnson Controls’ leadership behaviours: We own the outcome. We focus on what matters. We improve every day. We win as one team.

Skills & Competencies

• Strategic, business-oriented legal judgment with a pragmatic and solutions-focused mindset.
• Strong leadership presence with the ability to influence senior stakeholders.
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills across cultures and geographies.
• High ethical standards, integrity, and sound judgment.
• Ability to operate effectively in a complex, matrixed, multinational environment.
• Strong commercial acumen and risk management capability.

Qualifications & Experience

• Fluency in both English and Mandarin (spoken and written) is required.
• Qualified lawyer with admission to practice in China.
• 15+ years of progressive legal experience, including significant in-house experience within a multinational corporation.
• Substantial transactional experience at a large multinational publicly traded company or an international law firm is preferred.
• Strong background in commercial law, corporate governance, compliance, and dispute management.
• Prior experience managing multi-country legal teams.
• Willingness to travel across the Greater China region as required.

What We Offer

Competitive Compensation: Attractive salary and incentive package aligned with experience and performance.

Comprehensive Benefits: Executive benefits, pension/retirement plans, insurance coverage, employee assistance programs, and wellbeing initiatives.

Learning & Development: Continuous professional development, leadership training, and global career opportunities.

Inclusive Culture: A collaborative, diverse, and inclusive environment that values different perspectives.

Safety Commitment: A strong Zero Harm culture embedded across all operations.

Diversity & Inclusion: Active Business Resource Groups and a strong commitment to equity, inclusion, and belonging.