Head Of Legal

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We're on a mission to protect society from fraud and money laundering. We’ve already protected over 3 million people through life’s big transactions, with a core aim to protect 3.5 million people by the end of 2025. Fraud and regulation are rising, costing the UK economy over £100bn every year; this makes it more difficult for businesses to protect themselves and their clients – individuals like you and me – from fraud and money laundering.

Our co‑founders Olly and Jack were led to this area when a friend was defrauded of £25 k when buying their first property. At the time, anti‑fraud technology didn’t exist, so completing the required checks was largely manual. These big life moments should be exciting, but instead are often confusing and scary because of the painful process of paper‑based checks and the risk of fraud.

Thirdfort helps businesses facilitate these anti‑fraud checks so that individuals know they can transact safely and seamlessly with professionals during big transactions.

Our anti‑fraud platform provides a secure way for professionals in regulated sectors like lawyers, estate agents and accountants to transfer funds and verify sensitive information through app‑based document checks, facial recognition and open banking.

Over 1 000 businesses now trust Thirdfort to verify their clients. We are FCA regulated and have raised over $25 m in capital from leading fintech investors Breega and Element Ventures, as well as the founders of Zoopla, Funding Circle, Comply Advantage, Tessian, Fenergo and Fidel.

We're seeking a dynamic, solutions‑oriented commercial lawyer to lead our legal team. The legal team has been integral to Thirdfort's growth story, working closely with the founders, C‑suite and all teams across the business to help achieve our goals.

This role is varied, fast‑paced and demanding. You'll balance needs from across the organisation, stay at the forefront of regulatory and industry trends, and help the business manage legal risk. You'll manage an associate legal counsel and set the legal strategy, while also being comfortable zooming in, getting hands‑on yourself and being a strong partner to teams across the business. We're looking for somebody who can effectively scale the legal function at Thirdfort, leveraging AI, technologies and designing effective ways of working that ensure our lean but highly capable legal function performs and scales at its best.

• Provide strategic legal advice to the co‑founders, C‑suite and broader leadership team as required.
• Set and manage objectives and key results for the team and contribute to the broader planning and management requirements of the business.
• Line‑management responsibility for an associate legal counsel.
• Support commercial teams to manage and close a wide variety of commercial deals with clients and partners, improving legal and contracting processes, playbooks and templates.
• Enable teams by helping answer questions and solve problems on privacy, commercial law, AI and more.
• Give strategic and regulatory advice across the organisation while paying particular regard to the commercial context, to ensure the legal function is an enabler of company growth.
• Manage the legal aspects of supplier contracts, draft and negotiate outbound SaaS agreements, complex technology contracts and key vendor agreements; constantly iterate on the process for managing suppliers alongside other key procurement colleagues.
• Responsibility for managing and constantly iterating on the company’s data privacy compliance programme.
• Work with the founders, associate legal counsel and external counsel on potential corporate transactions such as fund‑raising or M&A.
• Constantly refine and iterate ways of working so the legal team can work more efficiently and support the needs of the business as they develop, considering process, people or tool improvement.
• Coordinate and implement any commercial litigation needs of the business.

• Are a qualified solicitor (England and Wales) with at least 6 years PQE in an in‑house legal department and/or a well‑respected law…