General Counsel (remote)

Role overview

Responsibilities

• Lead the Legal and Compliance function and build its management structure across regions.
• Set legal-work intake, priorities, service expectations, and reporting on workload and risk.
• Own legal public-market readiness, governance, group structure, delegated authority, policies, and disclosure controls.
• Advise the CEO, COO, CFO, and Board; support Board and committee meetings.
• Own commercial contracting standards, templates, negotiation positions, and escalation processes.
• Lead IP and open-source licensing strategy for Ubuntu and other products.
• Own compliance covering privacy, export and trade controls, anti-bribery, competition, and AI regulation.
• Manage litigation, disputes, regulatory engagement, and external counsel.
• Advise on M&A, partnerships, strategic alliances, and financing.

Requirements

• Law degree or equivalent and active licence to practice in an EMEA or Americas jurisdiction.
• Substantial senior in-house experience in a global technology or software business.
• Experience leading distributed legal teams and managing managers across regions and time zones.
• Experience building or restructuring an in-house legal function.
• Technology-contract experience spanning enterprise software, subscriptions, channel and reseller agreements, hardware, cloud, and services.
• Open-source licensing experience, including permissive and copyleft licences.
• Public-company governance experience or demonstrable readiness, including listing preparation, Board support, disclosure, and controls.
• Depth in at least two areas: privacy, IP and trademark, export and trade controls, competition, or disputes.
• Professional English with excellent drafting and presentation skills; strong academic record.
• Able to travel internationally two to four times a year for events lasting up to two weeks.

Preferred experience

• Preferred: IPO experience or counsel experience inside a listed company.
• Preferred: technical or engineering background, or fluency in how software is built and shipped.
• Preferred: subscription or recurring-revenue business experience.
• Preferred: qualification in more than one jurisdiction.

Colleague benefits

• Distributed work environment with twice-yearly in-person team sprints.
• USD 2,000 annual learning and development budget and bi-annual compensation review.
• Annual leave, maternity and paternity leave, wellness support, recognition rewards, and travel opportunities.

About Canonical