Group Corporate Secretary Group Corporate Secretary Dubai, United Arab Emirates 9 Sept 2026

Title:  Group Corporate Secretary

Description: 

Job Summary

IFFCO Group operates a corporate secretarial function of significant scale — board and shareholder governance across 100+ subsidiaries in several dozen jurisdictions, alongside active restructuring, financing and entity-rationalisation work. The Group is looking for an experienced Company Secretary who has operated inside the governance discipline of a public listed company and can bring that rigour into a large private multinational structure.

This is not a purely administrative or coordination role. The successful candidate will be expected to independently apply governance and regulatory judgement, hold the accuracy and integrity of the board record to a listed-company standard, advise directors and senior management proactively rather than reactively, and set the direction for how the Group's secretarial function should operate.

Roles & Responsibilities

Board & Shareholder Governance

• Own end-to-end planning, execution and follow-up of Board and shareholder meetings across Group entities, ensuring every meeting is validly convened, quorate and conducted in accordance with the applicable jurisdiction's law and the entity's constitutional documents.
• Prepare and quality-control Board agendas, notices and Board packs, and take personal ownership of minute accuracy — including managing situations where the record of a resolution is sought for, and ensuring the audit trail can withstand scrutiny.
• Advise directors directly on governance process, fiduciary duties, conflicts of interest and DOA/authority limits.
• Drive board and committee effectiveness practices (composition, evaluation cadence, induction of new directors) in line with recognised governance codes.

Statutory & Regulatory Compliance

• Maintain statutory and corporate records — registers of directors, shareholders, charges, trade licences, resolutions and governance documentation — to an auditable standard across all jurisdictions.
• Manage director and officer appointments, resignations and related regulatory filings across the Group, tracking deadlines proactively.
• Oversee amendments to MOA/AOA and constitutional documents across multiple jurisdictions, ensuring local regulatory.
• Act as single point of contact for external corporate secretarial service providers, registered agents and registrars globally, and hold them to defined service and quality standards.

Group Structure, Transactions & Special Situations

• Maintain and continuously validate the Group structure chart.
• Provide governance and secretarial support — coordinating board and shareholder approvals, resolutions, POAs and completion documentation, and liaising with internal and external legal counsel, auditors and financial advisors on documentation and information requirements.
• Identify legal and regulatory governance gaps proactively (e.g. missing approvals, indemnity or authority gaps, deferred matters) and drive remediation.
• Support corporate actions and entity rationalisation, including drafting and maintaining registers of powers of attorney and letters of authority.

Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Set and continuously improve the Group's secretarial policies, templates, calendars and DOA framework.
• Manage and mentor junior secretarial/paralegal team members and coordinate cross-functionally with Legal, Finance and business teams to keep board decision-making efficient.
• Act as a credible, senior-level point of contact for the Board, senior management and external stakeholders (auditors, regulators, financial advisors) on governance matters.

Work Experience Requirement

• 7–10+ years of post-qualification experience in a company secretarial / corporate governance role.
• Minimum 5 years within a public listed (blue chip) company, including at least 3 continuous years with a single listed company — direct, hands-on exposure to listing rules, continuous disclosure obligations and a formal corporate governance code, not just a group with listed group as parent.
• Experience operating within a large multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction group structure strongly preferred.
• International experience preferred; candidates currently based in the UAE and available to start within a reasonable notice period preferred.

Qualification

Qualifications

• Professional company secretarial qualification required — e.g. Company Secretary (ICSI, India), Chartered Secretary (CGI – The Chartered Governance Institute, UK), or an equivalent recognised body.

Regulatory & Technical Knowledge

• Familiarity with UAE mainland and free zone company frameworks (DED, DMCC, JAFZA or similar) and, ideally, ADGM/DIFC company regulations.
• Exposure to offshore holding jurisdictions commonly used in group financing structures is preferred.
• Bilingual (Arabic–English) preferred.

Skills & Competencies

• Board-ready drafting: agendas, resolutions, minutes and governance correspondence that require minimal rework.
• Sound independent judgement — able to spot a governance or authority gap before it becomes a dispute, and to say so plainly to senior stakeholders.
• Comfortable operating in a fast-moving, high-stakes environment without losing procedural discipline.
• High discretion and integrity given regular exposure to commercially and legally sensitive matters.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and improve a function, not just maintain it — this candidate should be able to set direction for the Group's secretarial practice.

Business Unit:  Corporate-Legal (7629)

Business Group:  Corporate Legal (7588)