General Counsel

• Lead Canonical’s global Legal and Compliance function across EMEA and the Americas
• Build and manage management capability by hiring and developing managers, setting objectives, reviewing performance, and addressing under-performance
• Set the function’s operating cadence, including legal-work intake, prioritization, service expectations, and workload and risk reporting
• Own public-market legal readiness, including corporate governance, group and entity structure, delegated authority, policies, disclosure controls, and records
• Advise the CEO, COO, CFO, Board, and committees
• Own the commercial contracting framework, including templates, negotiating positions, deviation, and escalation processes
• Lead intellectual property and open source licensing strategy, including copyleft, trademark, and Ubuntu and product distribution terms
• Own the global compliance program covering data protection and privacy, export controls and trade compliance, anti-bribery and corruption, competition, and AI regulation
• Manage litigation, disputes, regulatory engagement, external counsel, budget, and quality
• Advise on M&A, partnerships, strategic alliances, and financing

• Exceptional academic track record from both high school and university
• A degree in law, or equivalent, and an active licence to practice in an EMEA or Americas jurisdiction
• Substantial senior in-house experience in a global technology or software business
• Proven experience leading a distributed legal team, including managing managers across regions and time zones
• Track record of setting and holding a high performance bar, hiring well, developing people, and addressing under-performance directly
• Experience building or restructuring an in-house legal function, including deciding what is retained, delegated, and sent to external counsel
• Experience negotiating and owning commercial technology contracts, including enterprise software and subscriptions, channel and reseller agreements, hardware manufacturer agreements, cloud and services
• Experience advising on open source licensing, including permissive and copyleft licences, and familiarity with open source communities
• Experience of, or demonstrable readiness for, public company governance, including listing preparation, board and committee support, disclosure, and controls
• Depth in at least two of: data protection and privacy, IP and trademark, export controls and trade, competition, or disputes
• Confidence to speak up, exchange feedback, hold colleagues accountable, and share ideas
• Professional written and spoken English with excellent drafting and presentation skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility, and accountability
• Ability to travel internationally two to four times a year for company events up to two weeks long

• Performance-driven annual bonus or commission
• Distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person
• Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year
• Bi-annual compensation review
• Company recognition rewards
• 40 days annual leave per annum, including public holidays and All Company holiday periods
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Team Member Assistance Program & Wellness Platform
• Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues
• Priority Pass for lounge access