Senior Commercial Legal Counsel

Job description

The Role With the product finalized, EnerVenue is scaling sales across China and new international markets. Commercial contract volume and complexity are outpacing Legal's current bandwidth — slowing deal velocity, delaying revenue recognition, and pushing legal review to signature stage rather than early in the deal cycle. The Senior Commercial Legal Counsel removes that constraint. You will shorten contract turnaround, build the standardized templates and negotiation playbooks the sales team can run on, triage and resolve commercial disputes before they escalate into costly litigation, and clear cross-border legal and regulatory considerations ahead of sales outreach — so the business can close deals and expand safely. Key Responsibilities Contract Lifecycle Management: · Draft, review and negotiate the full range of commercial contracts supporting sales activities in China and overseas markets, including distributor, agency, sales and framework agreements. · Own and continuously improve the sales contract template library and negotiation playbooks, so that routine sales contracts can be issued and closed by the sales team with minimal ad hoc legal drafting. · Advise the sales and business development teams in real time during customer negotiations and on other sales and market-related matters. Dispute Resolution & Commercial Risk Management: · Manage commercial disputes and customer/distributor escalations end-to-end, from initial issue triage through negotiated resolution, litigation or arbitration, keeping business stakeholders informed of status and exposure at each stage. · Select, instruct and manage outside counsel on litigation and arbitration matters, controlling cost and ensuring case strategy stays aligned with commercial objectives. · Identify recurring sources of contract disputes and feed lessons learned back into templates, playbooks and sales training to reduce repeat issues. Sales Enablement & Cross-Functional Partnership: · Partner with Sales, Finance and Supply Chain to embed legal review early in the deal cycle rather than at signature stage, reducing late-stage deal risk and rework. · Deliver periodic training to the sales organization on contracting fundamentals, red-flag issue-spotting, and when to escalate to Legal. · Support cross-border sales transactions by flagging export control, trade compliance and other regulatory considerations relevant to the customer or destination market. Position Requirements: Required: · Qualified lawyer (PRC legal qualification and/or foreign bar admission) with a minimum of 8 years of relevant experience, including substantial in-house commercial/contracts experience. · Demonstrated experience drafting and negotiating commercial sales-side contracts (e.g., distribution, sales, agency or supply agreements) in a fast-paced business environment. · Fluent written and spoken English and Mandarin Chinese, with the ability to draft and negotiate contracts in both languages. Preferred: · Experience supporting a manufacturing, energy, battery/storage or industrial technology company with international sales operations. · Familiarity with export control and trade compliance considerations (e.g., U.S. EAR) relevant to cross-border sales of technology products. · Experience managing outside counsel and commercial litigation/arbitration across multiple jurisdictions. Mandatory Core Competencies • Contract Drafting & Negotiation: Produces clear, commercially sound contracts under time pressure, and negotiates directly with customers and counterparties to closure without unnecessary escalation. • Commercial Judgment & Business Partnering: Translates legal risk into plain business terms and is sought out by sales leaders as a trusted advisor rather than viewed as a blocker. • Dispute Resolution & Risk Triage: Quickly assesses the severity and exposure of an emerging dispute and recommends a proportionate path forward — negotiate, escalate or litigate — rather than defaulting to the most conservative option. What Success Looks Like • First 90 days: Onboarded on the company's sales organization, product lines and key customer relationships. Existing backlog of pending sales contracts reviewed and cleared. Core sales, finance and supply chain stakeholders met. • 6 months: A refreshed sales contract template library and playbook covering the company's most common deal types delivered. Average contract turnaround time reduced. At least one training session run for the sales team on contracting basics and escalation triggers. • 12 months: A track record established of resolving commercial disputes and escalations without unplanned business disruption. The sales team routinely engages Legal early in the deal cycle rather than at signature stage. Key Working Relationships Internal: · Sales and Business Development teams (daily / weekly) · General Counsel, Finance, Supply Chain and other functional leaders (regular) External: · Customers, distributors and agents (as needed during negotiations) · Outside counsel, arbitral institutions and courts (as disputes arise) What EnerVenue Offers · Ownership of the commercial contracting function for a company scaling sales across China and international markets — you will build the templates, playbooks and processes, not inherit them. · Direct partnership with the General Counsel and with sales, finance and supply chain leadership, with visible impact on deal velocity and revenue. · A technology with a genuine differentiator — 30,000+ cycles, a 30-year design life, inherent fire-safety, no lithium — not another commodity LFP integrator. · A well-capitalized growth stage: US$300M Series B extension closed in 2026, with the Changzhou base scaling from 250 MWh toward 1 GWh. · A mission-driven team building grid infrastructure designed to last 30 years, not a short-cycle consumer product. About EnerVenue EnerVenue is a Silicon Valley-based energy infrastructure company commercializing metal-hydrogen battery technology originally developed by NASA for the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station. Founded in 2020 by Stanford Professor Yi Cui, EnerVenue adapts this proven aerospace chemistry for grid-scale terrestrial energy storage, delivering batteries with 30,000+ cycle lifetimes, inherent fire-safety, and a 30-year design life. In 2026, EnerVenue closed a $300 million Series B extension and is well capitalized for growth. Funds are being deployed to build a high-volume manufacturing facility in Changzhou, China, targeting 250 MWh capacity by Q3 2026 and 1 GWh by 2027. EnerVenue has been named one of Time magazine's Top 10 US Green Technology Companies of 2025.