Head of Legal & Compliance

Job description

About the employer the employer is an AI-native platform for Customer Experience (CX) Intelligence that manages entire customer lifecycles autonomously, from initial engagement through retention and growth. Unlike platforms that only surface insights and leave the action to you, the employer completes the loop with proprietary Natural Language Understanding (NLU) capabilities developed entirely in-house and trained on billions of multilingual conversations. Our platform empowers marketing, customer support, CX, and research teams to deliver personalized experiences that improve customer satisfaction, retention, and lifetime value. Why this role matters the employer is growing quickly. As we expand across the GCC, serve more enterprise and government customers, and prepare for the next stage of our journey, Legal & Compliance becomes a strategic enabler of that growth. We're looking for someone to build and lead a lean, high-impact Legal & Compliance function that helps the business scale with confidence. You'll own the legal, governance, risk, compliance, and data protection agenda, ensuring we remain commercially agile while meeting the expectations of customers, regulators, auditors, and investors. This is a hands-on leadership role where you'll partner closely with the executive team, manage a small internal team and external counsel, and build the foundations that support the employer's long-term success. What You'll Do • Own the employer's legal and compliance strategy, building a function that enables the business to grow while maintaining strong governance and managing risk effectively. • Streamline our commercial contracting process across customer, vendor, partner, and public sector agreements by creating practical templates, playbooks, and processes that help the business move faster without compromising protection. • Lead our Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) program, ensuring certifications such as ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, NIST, GDPR, and other compliance requirements remain audit-ready through close partnership with Security and Engineering. • Act as the employer's Data Protection Officer, ensuring compliance with Saudi PDPL, GDPR, and other privacy regulations while embedding privacy-by-design into our products and operations. • Lead corporate legal matters across the group structure, supporting board governance, corporate administration, mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, and future capital markets readiness. • Enable the employer's regional expansion by leading the legal and compliance work required to establish new entities, manage local regulatory obligations, and coordinate external legal counsel across multiple jurisdictions. • Build and lead a lean Legal & Compliance team, creating the right balance between internal capability and external expertise while serving as a trusted advisor to the CEO, CFO, and executive leadership team. What Success Looks Like (First 6–12 Months) • Establish a well-run Legal & Compliance function with clear ownership, governance, and efficient operating processes. • Streamline the contracting process and successfully integrate and develop the Legal Associate. • Deliver ISO 27001 and SOC 2 renewals on schedule while maintaining a strong, evidence-backed compliance posture. • Implement an enterprise risk register, core corporate policies, and a robust Data Protection Officer framework. • Significantly advance the employer's legal and governance readiness for mergers and acquisitions, future fundraising, and capital markets activities.

Requirements

• Who You Are
• 10+ years of legal experience, including in-house legal and compliance leadership at a technology, SaaS, or comparably regulated company.
• Qualified lawyer with a strong grounding in commercial, corporate, and technology law
• Saudi law exposure and understanding of the KSA/GCC regulatory environment strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ownership of a compliance and certification program (ISO 27001, SOC 2 or equivalent) and of data-protection compliance (PDPL and/or GDPR).
• Hands-on M&A and corporate experience - managed diligence and transaction processes, ideally including work alongside investors and boards.
• Regulated-industry exposure - experience serving or operating within public-sector, banking/financial-services, or telecom environments.
• Track record of building or scaling a legal and compliance function in a high-growth company, and of managing external counsel effectively on a budget.
• Pre-IPO or capital-markets readiness experience is a strong advantage.
• Required Skills & Competencies
• Autonomous operator. Runs the function independently with minimal oversight
• brings structure to ambiguity and requires no hand-holding.
• Commercial judgment. Balances legal risk against business velocity
• a business enabler, not a blocker.
• Governance rigor. Builds durable policies, controls, and audit trails that withstand external scrutiny.
• Clear communicator. Translates complex legal and regulatory matters into concise, decision-ready guidance for executives and the board.
• Fluent in English
• Arabic strongly preferred.
• Pragmatic and lean. Knows when to build in-house, when to use external counsel, and how to prioritize under resource constraints.
• High integrity and independence. Comfortable holding the line on governance and escalating when necessary
• What the hiring process will look like
• Our interview process is designed to help both you and us determine whether this is the right long-term fit.
• The process typically includes:
• Initial conversation with Talent Acquisition
• Interview with executive leadership

Skills