Vice President, Legal – San Francisco or New York (Hybrid) (986-SLS)

Job description

Our client, a rapidly growing global technology company is seeking a Vice President, Legal to help lead its legal function through its next stage of growth and maturity. The company has operations across numerous countries and a complex corporate structure comprising approximately 50 entities worldwide. This is a highly visible leadership position reporting to the company’s Chief Legal & Risk Officer. This executive will manage a global legal team of seven professionals and will work closely with senior business leaders throughout the organization. This is a hybrid position based in either San Francisco or New York. ### Key Responsibilities: - Serve as the Chief Legal & Risk Officer’s senior partner on legal matters and help lead the global legal function. - Manage, develop, and mentor a global team of seven legal professionals, creating a cohesive, collaborative team and helping individual team members perform at their highest level. - Partner closely with the Chief Legal & Risk Officer on IPO readiness and a potential IPO process, including diligence, corporate governance, outside counsel management, and coordination with bankers, underwriters, and other advisors. - Manage legal matters including general commercial, product, IP and employment - Lead and continue to professionalize global corporate governance across approximately 50 legal entities in numerous jurisdictions. - Develop the governance infrastructure, processes, controls, and documentation necessary to support continued growth and eventual public-company readiness. - Partner with senior executives and business stakeholders to provide practical, commercially oriented legal advice that enables the business to move quickly while appropriately managing risk. - Modernize and systematize the legal department through the thoughtful use of AI, legal technology, workflow tools, knowledge management systems, and automation. - Evaluate emerging legal technology and develop dashboards, metrics, and tools that improve effectiveness, resource allocation, and communication with business stakeholders. - Build repeatable processes, playbooks, systems, and institutional knowledge so recurring legal issues can be addressed efficiently and consistently. - Work cross-functionally with business, product, commercial, finance, risk, and other teams to embed Legal more effectively into business decision-making. - Manage and strategically deploy outside counsel, balancing specialized expertise with cost, efficiency, and the development of internal capabilities. ### Qualifications: - J.D. from an accredited law school and active membership in good standing with at least one U.S. state bar. - Meaningful experience in private practice coupled with substantial in-house experience. - Significant experience with corporate governance, ideally involving a complex global corporate structure. - Experience supporting an IPO, IPO-readiness initiative, public-company transition, or similarly significant corporate transaction is strongly preferred. - Demonstrated ability to manage, mentor, and develop high-performing legal professionals. - Experience working within a global business and managing legal matters across multiple jurisdictions. - Strong understanding of AI and how technology can improve legal operations, workflows, knowledge management, and service delivery. - Experience implementing or meaningfully participating in the modernization of a legal department through technology, AI, automation, CLM, knowledge-management tools, or similar systems is highly desirable. - Technology company experience, with comfort operating in a lean, hands-on environment. - Strong business acumen and the ability to translate sophisticated legal concepts into practical guidance for non-legal stakeholders. - Excellent judgment, communication skills, executive presence, and stakeholder-management capabilities. - Experience in a regulated business; insurance, insurtech, fintech, financial services, or another complex regulated environment is a plus, but not required