General Counsel

Phoenix
5425 E Washington St
Phoenix, AZ 85034, USA

Description

The Opportunity

Sunstate Equipment is creating its first General Counsel role to support the Company's continued growth, increasing operational scale, and long-term strategic ambitions. Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer, the General Counsel will serve as the Company's chief legal officer and trusted legal advisor to the CEO, Executive Leadership Team, and Board. This executive will build the legal function, establish scalable governance, and provide practical, commercially focused legal counsel that enables growth while appropriately managing enterprise risk. This is a unique opportunity for a commercially minded legal executive to build a modern legal function, shape enterprise governance, and serve as a trusted advisor during an exciting period of continued growth and organizational evolution.

Position Summary

The Senior Vice President, General Counsel serves as Sunstate Equipment's chief legal officer and a strategic member of the Executive Leadership Team. Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer, this executive provides practical, commercially oriented legal counsel that enables informed business decisions, accelerates growth, strengthens governance, and appropriately manages enterprise risk. The role is responsible for building and leading the Company's legal function while partnering across the organization to advance Sunstate's strategic priorities. The Senior Vice President, General Counsel is expected to be an enterprise leader who enables the business through practical legal guidance rather than acting solely as a legal reviewer or risk gatekeeper.

Key Responsibilities:

• Serve as principal legal advisor to the CEO, Executive Leadership Team, and Board on significant strategic and legal business matters.
• Develop the Company's legal strategy and priorities to support long-term business objectives, strategic growth initiatives, and acquisition activity while ensuring scalable legal governance and enterprise risk management.
• Build and continuously improve Sunstate's legal operating model, including governance, legal operations, templates, policies, technology, and scalable business processes.
• Lead negotiation and review of significant commercial agreements, including customer, vendor, procurement, technology, and strategic partnership contracts.
• Establish enterprise contract governance and approval processes that improve consistency, speed, and risk management.
• Provide legal guidance supporting strategic initiatives, organizational growth, and executive decision making.
• Oversee corporate governance, entity management, delegated authority, ethics guidance, and enterprise legal risk.
• Manage significant litigation, disputes, claims, and investigations through outside counsel while overseeing legal budgets and performance.
• Partner with Human Resources on executive employment agreements, investigations involving significant legal risk, workforce actions, restrictive covenants, employment litigation, and policy review.
• Lead the legal aspects of mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, strategic investments, financing transactions, and other strategic corporate initiatives, including legal due diligence, transaction structuring, negotiation, documentation, closing, and post-acquisition integration support.
• Provide guidance regarding intellectual property, privacy, data governance, and evolving legal and regulatory developments.
• Develop legal education and practical resources that improve legal awareness across the organization.
• Exercises exceptional business judgment while balancing legal risk with commercial objectives.
• Builds trusted relationships across executive leadership through credibility and sound counsel.
• Communicates complex legal matters in practical business language.
• Demonstrates executive presence, integrity, discretion, and humility.
• Creates scalable governance rather than unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Anticipates legal risks before they become business issues.
• Influences through collaboration and practical solutions.
• Demonstrates the courage to appropriately challenge assumptions, provide independent counsel, and advocate for the Company's long-term interests.

Personal Characteristics:

• High integrity and unquestioned ethics
• Sound judgment
• Executive maturity
• Humility
• Courage to provide independent counsel
• Collaborative leadership style
• Low ego
• Pragmatic decision making
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment

Qualifications:

Required Qualifications

• Juris Doctor (J.D.) from an accredited law school.
• Licensed to practice law in Arizona or eligible for Arizona In-House Counsel registration.
• Typically 12+ years of progressively responsible legal experience within a leading law firm and/or sophisticated corporate legal department.
• Demonstrated success advising executive leadership on complex legal and business matters.
• Significant experience negotiating sophisticated commercial agreements.
• Demonstrated experience leading or providing primary legal support for mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, or other complex corporate transactions.
• Experience managing outside counsel, litigation strategy, and legal budgets.
• Exceptional business judgment, executive presence, and the ability to communicate complex legal matters in practical business terms.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting Boards of Directors, executive governance or Corporate Secretary responsibilities.
• Experience leading or building an in-house legal function.
• Experience within industrial services, equipment rental, construction, manufacturing, distribution, transportation, or other multi-state operating businesses.
• Experience implementing legal operations, contract lifecycle management, or other technology-enabled legal processes.

Success in the First 12 Months:

• Become a trusted advisor to the CEO and Executive Leadership Team and become a valued strategic advisor to business leaders throughout the organization.
• Establish a scalable legal operating model for the Company.
• Establish scalable legal processes and provide strategic legal leadership supporting the Company's acquisition strategy, transaction execution, and post-acquisition integration activities.
• Implement practical contract governance and standard legal documentation.
• Improve commercial contracting efficiency while maintaining appropriate risk controls.
• Reduce dependence on outside counsel where internal capability creates value.
• Strengthen governance while preserving Sunstate's entrepreneurial culture.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities
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