Legal and Compliance Director / Senior Director

Job description

We're looking for a Legal and Compliance Director / Senior Director to own and build our legal, regulatory and compliance function as GetGround scales its regulated financial services and property investment platform. With ambitious plans to grow into new markets, this is a role for a highly commercial lawyer who has operated at a senior level, built or led a legal and compliance function, and is ready to help further shape the whole thing. You'll shape how a fast-growing business that operates at the intersection of fintech, proptech and wealthtech, manages risk, meets its regulatory obligations, and earns the trust of customers, regulators, and partners, including as we look beyond our current markets. This role reports directly to the COO. THE OPPORTUNITY GetGround has grown significantly since we last hired in this function. We now have £2Bn+ in assets on platform, 30,000+ users across 70 countries, and a portfolio of regulated products spanning mortgages, property management, and investment tools. Our ambition is to keep growing, including into new geographies, and our legal and regulatory function needs to be ready for that. You'll be shaping the function, not just running it. That means continuing to set the strategy, build frameworks that can scale into new markets, support the team, and being the person the business turns to when the stakes are high. You’ll champion the use of AI and legal technology tools across the function, from contract review and regulatory research to compliance monitoring to make us a faster, more scalable team WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING LEGAL LEADERSHIP - Own all legal matters across corporate, commercial, IP, employment, data, product, and fundraising - Drive and support geographic expansion, including navigating legal and regulatory requirements in new markets - Lead and negotiate high-value commercial partnerships, customer and supplier contracts - Advise the CEO and leadership team on legal risk as we launch new products and enter new markets - Manage external counsel relationships and budgets with rigour and commercial discipline - Build scalable legal infrastructure: templates, processes, playbooks, and training REGULATORY COMPLIANCE - Own GetGround's compliance with FCA regulations across all products and markets, including Consumer Duty, COBS, and MCOB - Act as (or appoint and oversee) the Compliance Officer and MLRO, with full accountability for AML, KYC, and financial crime controls - Lead proactive engagement with the FCA and other regulatory bodies, and build the relationships and frameworks that will underpin future market entry - Ensure all regulated communications, marketing, and customer-facing content meet compliance standards - Keep the business ahead of regulatory change, not scrambling to catch up RISK MANAGEMENT - Design and own the enterprise risk management framework, including risk appetite, policies, governance, and reporting. Leading risk identification, assessment, and mitigation across all business areas BUILDING THE TEAM AND CULTURE - Develop and manage a high-performing legal and compliance team as GetGround scales - Foster a compliance culture that enables the business rather than blocking it: pragmatic, proportionate, and trusted - Be a visible partner across every function: Finance, Product, Engineering, Operations, and Marketing ABOUT YOU You are a qualified solicitor with significant post-qualification experience and crucially, you have moved well beyond pure legal delivery. You are deeply commercial, a leader, and someone who can run the whole legal, compliance, and risk function independently. You bring: - Senior legal leadership experience: 6 + Years of PQE experience and experience heading up the legal function - Commercial instincts: you think like a business person first and a lawyer second, and you are trusted by leadership to make calls that balance risk with growth - FCA expertise: deep, hands-on knowledge of operating within FCA-regulated environments, including Consumer Duty, COBS, and MCOB - Compliance and financial crime: proven experience with AML, KYC, and financial crime frameworks, implemented proportionately and pragmatically - International outlook: you are comfortable thinking across jurisdictions and have the curiosity and commercial mindset to help GetGround navigate new markets as our expansion plans take shape - People leadership: you are as strong with people as you are with legal matters, and you know how to build culture, develop talent, and influence across a business - Board-level credibility: you are comfortable advising executives and presenting to boards, and you know how to influence without authority Highly desirable: - Experience with property, mortgage, or investment products - Familiarity with international or emerging market regulatory frameworks - Having held a named FCA-approved person status We know that great candidates don't always match every point on a job description. If this role excites you and you meet most of the criteria, we'd encourage you to apply anyway. What we are building: The first end-to-end real estate investment offering - making the dream of owning real estate more accessible to everyone globally. Diversity & inclusion at GetGround: We encourage applications from all sections of society and we believe in the criticality of an inclusive culture. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other basis as protected by law. - 42% of our employees identify as female or non-specified, 58% as male - 22 nationalities represented across offices in 5 countries - Our work on Design Accessibility https://medium.com/@GetGround/design-that-works-for-everyone-accessibility-at-getground-a7cf7ca867f0 - Inclusion is at the heart of our culture - we celebrate and reflect on key D&I and cultural events such as: Black History Month, International Women's Day and Pride For more information on how we store your candidate data, please see our recruitment privacy policy https://25516403.fs1.hubspotusercontent-eu1.net/hubfs/25516403/GetGroundRecruitmentPrivacyPolicy.pdf.