Director, Legal Counsel

📋 Description

• • Sift Science, Inc. is seeking a highly accomplished and strategic Director, Legal Counsel to join our dynamic Legal & Compliance team. This pivotal role represents the most senior attorney position within the department, reporting directly to the Chief Financial Officer and collaborating closely with the Chief Executive Officer. You will be instrumental in managing a wide spectrum of transactional needs and will play a crucial part in shaping our legal strategy as Sift continues its ambitious growth trajectory, both domestically and on the international stage.
• • As a key member of a lean and agile legal team, you will be presented with significant opportunities for professional growth and development. This position is ideally suited for an individual with a robust background in commercial contracts, encompassing both customer and vendor agreements, who is eager to expand their expertise into other critical legal domains. Our team operates with a proactive and efficient approach, prioritizing thoughtful execution while adeptly balancing inherent business risks with overarching business objectives.
• • In this leadership capacity, you will spearhead the legal function with a primary emphasis on commercial contracts. Your responsibilities will include managing a Contracts Manager and driving the negotiation and finalization of our most complex transactions with Sift’s enterprise clients and strategic partners. Furthermore, you will be tasked with conceptualizing and implementing scalable processes and tools to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the legal department as the company expands.
• • Given the nature of Sift's business – a leader in online fraud prevention – a strong understanding of Business-to-Business (B2B) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models, online data handling, and associated data protection regulations is essential. Beyond this core focus, you will have the opportunity to develop into a more generalist legal role over time, contributing to areas such as product counseling, employment law, international subsidiary management, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), fundraising activities, intellectual property matters, and corporate governance, as business needs and your bandwidth permit.
• • Your day-to-day responsibilities will involve leading our commercial legal function, with a keen focus on customer and strategic partner agreements. You will also ensure that our vendor management processes are robust, appropriate, and aligned with company standards. This includes serving as a strategic business partner, meticulously reviewing, drafting, and negotiating a diverse array of domestic and international commercial agreements. A significant portion of this work will involve our SaaS-based online fraud prevention services, catering to enterprise-level customers and channel partners through various arrangements like referral agreements, reseller agreements, distributor agreements, and integrated marketplace partnerships.
• • A critical aspect of this role is to contribute to the scaling of our legal team's capabilities. This will be achieved by developing and refining processes, creating playbooks, identifying and implementing effective tools, delivering training programs, and exploring opportunities for AI automation to streamline legal operations. You will also expand your substantive legal expertise by managing relationships with external counsel for specialized areas, including product and privacy counseling, international expansion initiatives, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, and employment law matters.
• • A customer-centric and proactive approach is paramount. You will provide practical, decisive guidance across various business functions, ensuring a harmonious balance between achieving business objectives and mitigating legal risks. This role offers a unique chance to influence the legal direction of a growing technology company at the forefront of Digital Trust & Safety, making a tangible impact on Sift's continued success and market leadership.