Associate Director - Global Customs & Trade Counsel

Associate Director – Global Customs & Trade Counsel

At General Motors, we have a vision of a world with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion, and we believe our people are the driving force behind making this a reality. The Global Finance team is essential to achieving our vision through its ability to generate insights that maximize profitability, minimize risk, and enable greater innovation. At General Motors, we value our employees and strive to create a culture of inclusion, integrity, boldness, and innovation.

The General Motors Global Tax and Customs department focuses on GM’s most strategic and complex tax and customs matters. We manage relationships with numerous external partners that perform many routine functions. We aspire to be trusted advisors to internal customers and external stakeholders by providing actionable, innovative advice in a straightforward manner. We achieve these goals by empowering team members through trust, flexibility, feedback, and career development.

Overview of Your Role

The Associate Director – Global Customs & Trade Counsel serves as GM’s senior legal and compliance advisor for global customs and North American export-control matters. The role establishes enterprise legal strategy, risk governance, policies, and controls; leads significant regulatory controversies, disclosures, appeals, investigations, and audits; advises senior business and Legal leaders on complex commercial arrangements; and oversees continuous improvement across the Customs organization’s Controls & Compliance and Entry Broker Management centers of excellence.

The Associate Director exercises broad influence across regions and business units, including Legal, Finance, Purchasing, Engineering, Supply Chain, and other business partners. The role serves as the North American Export Compliance Officer for the Customs organization and is accountable for ensuring that the Global Customs Group understands and complies with applicable export-control laws and regulations governing the export and re-export of GM products, equipment, machinery, vehicles, materials, components, software, technology, technical data, and services.

The Associate Director has enterprise-wide accountability for customs and trade legal matters, regulatory controversies and appeals, complex contract review, the Controls & Compliance Center of Excellence, and the Entry Broker Management Center of Excellence. Detailed accountabilities for these functions are described below. The Associate Director reports directly to the General Director – Global Customs.

Your Responsibilities:

• Serve as the senior legal and compliance authority for the Customs organization’s understanding of and compliance with applicable export-control laws and regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations, International Traffic in Arms Regulations, Office of Foreign Assets Control requirements, and related requirements, as applicable.
• Establish and maintain the Customs organization’s legal and compliance strategy, risk priorities, policies, procedures, and governance framework.
• Advise senior executives, business leaders, Legal, Finance, Purchasing, Engineering, Supply Chain, and other stakeholders on material customs, trade, export-control, and regulatory risks.
• Lead legal strategy for customs and trade audits, investigations, disclosures, protests, appeals, enforcement matters, and other regulatory controversies.
• Draft, review, and oversee the submission of U.S. Customs and Border Protection protests, appeals, prior disclosures, voluntary disclosures, and other regulatory filings.
• Maintain a globally consistent GM position on key customs topics, including valuation, classification, country of origin, admissibility, transfer pricing, free trade agreements, and duty-benefit programs.
• Partner with the Transfer Pricing team to align customs valuation positions with applicable legal, regulatory, and financial requirements.
• Represent or support GM’s engagement with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Bureau of Industry and Security, other regulators, industry associations, and external stakeholders, as appropriate.
• Select, direct, and manage outside counsel, consultants, and technical experts in support of significant matters.
• Provide timely, practical, and forward-looking legal guidance on customs and trade requirements in complex contracts, new business lines, global deployments, and evolving supply-chain models.
• Develop and publish clear legal memoranda, guidance, and communications for Customs and business partners.
• Serve as the accountable legal partner to the Office of Export Compliance and facilitate quarterly export-compliance meetings with Customs Regional Sub-Export Compliance Officers.
• Participate in Office of Export Compliance meetings and partner on the development of policies, training, investigations, corrective actions, and responses to potential violations.
• Oversee Customs compliance exercises, including annual validations, biennial questionnaires, heat maps, audits, and other risk assessments.
• Establish and monitor controls to identify, remediate, and prevent compliance issues.
• Partner with global teams to continuously improve and simplify compliance controls, processes, and documentation.
• Develop and implement standardized customs service-provider bid, contracting, transition, performance-monitoring, and governance processes.
• Leverage automation, data, and technology to improve the efficiency, accuracy, transparency, and sustainability of the Controls & Compliance and Entry Broker Management centers of excellence.
• Provide direct and indirect leadership to Customs professionals, with a focus on capability development, engagement, inclusion, succession planning, and high performance.
• undefined Develop basic Customs and import training materials to educate and increase employee awareness and engagement of baseline knowledge of the Customs function and its strategic role within the company.Exercise sound, independent legal judgment in situations involving ambiguity, competing priorities, significant financial exposure, or potential regulatory and reputational risk.

Required Qualifications:

• Juris Doctor degree from an accredited law school.
• Active license to practice law in at least one U.S. jurisdiction and ability to maintain that license in good standing.
• 10+ years of legal, customs, international trade, export-control, or closely related experience, including significant experience advising multinational companies.
• Substantial experience with customs and trade legal matters, including valuation, classification, country of origin, admissibility, entry and export compliance, free trade agreements, duty-benefit programs, corporate compliance, self-assessment, and transfer pricing interactions.
• Demonstrated experience managing regulatory audits, investigations, disclosures, protests, appeals, enforcement matters, and outside counsel.
• Experience developing and implementing enterprise policies, compliance programs, controls, risk assessments, and governance frameworks.
• 5+ years of demonstrated leadership experience developing high-performing teams and influencing through direct and indirect leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally and globally with senior executives, business leaders, Legal, Finance, Supply Chain, Purchasing, Engineering, and external stakeholders.
• Excellent written, oral, negotiation, and presentation skills, with the ability to translate complex legal requirements into clear, practical business guidance.
• Strong executive presence, judgment, problem-solving ability, and ability to initiate and implement continuous improvement.
• Self-motivated, collaborative, and effective in a highly complex, global, and rapidly changing environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Licensed Customs Broker credential.
• Experience with automotive manufacturing, global supply chains, contract manufacturing, technology licensing, joint ventures, or complex commercial agreements.
• Experience leading compliance automation, data governance, or process-transformation initiatives.
• Experience working with major law firms, customs brokers, consultants, and other external service providers.

Location: Hybrid. This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the successful candidate is expected to report to the - Global HQ Hudson Building, Detroit, Mi, Or Washington - GM Public Policy Office, Washington DC - Office three times per week, at minimum [or other frequency dictated by the business]