About This Role
At Apeel Sciences, the Head of Legal embodies the nexus of legal stewardship and strategic leadership, entrusted with the critical task of navigating our global business and operations through a complex legal landscape. Beyond the traditional purview of legal oversight, this role is a beacon of integrity, ensuring that our actions align with regulatory mandates and ethical standards while fostering an environment ripe for innovation and growth. From spearheading corporate governance initiatives to orchestrating intricate contract negotiations, you'll be instrumental in fortifying our legal framework and propelling us toward our strategic imperatives – navigating the complexities of the legal landscape with foresight and precision, all while championing our mission to create a more sustainable future through innovative solutions.
What You’ll Do
- Act as a key partner to the global business, advising and leading to help the company proactively and scalably assess and manage legal risk and compliance, and drive competitiveness.
- Couple depth and breadth of corporate legal experience and strong collaboration with a thorough understanding of our corporate values, strategy, and goals, as well as with our technologies, products, business models, and core operations.
- Develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive legal compliance program across the company.
- Oversee and execute corporate governance matters, including Board of Directors matters and the formation and management of subsidiaries, ensuring adherence to regulatory requirements.
- Draft and negotiate right-sized legal agreements and documents -- going beyond form templates where appropriate -- encompassing contracts with customers, vendors, partners, and various stakeholders.
- Develop and refine processes and procedures for handling commercial agreements, optimizing departmental efficiency.
- Oversee the management of our intellectual property portfolio, including engagement with our R&D activities to ensure a healthy and protected innovation pipeline.
- Oversee and manage our corporate insurance portfolio and policies.
- Offer legal guidance on employment matters, including drafting and negotiating employment contracts, and related documentation.
- Provide legal assistance in fundraising, M&A, and related activities, ensuring compliance and mitigating risks throughout the process.
- Oversee and manage litigations, where needed.
- Lead and grow a lean, high-performing team.
- Oversee external legal counsel, optimizing their efficiency and quality of work.
What You Bring
- Licensed to practice law in California, with a minimum of 15 years of diverse and proven legal experience across contracts and deal-making, corporate governance, equity plans, compliance, intellectual property, litigation, M&A, and SEC compliance and reporting.
- Experience in a high-growth or turnaround business setting is preferred, particularly with taking a company from private to public offering.
- Experience in FoodTech, AgTech, or other “deep tech” companies with products and services -- as well as software products and services -- a strong asset.
- Exemplary professionalism and strict preservation of confidentiality.
- Thoroughness and rigor in the analysis of a legal or business matter.
- Reliable exercise of sound judgment and ability to give actionable advice in ambiguous situations.
- Ability to work independently while contributing successfully cross-functionally.
- Strong organizational, written, and verbal communication skills essential for effective legal counsel and collaboration across the organization, including external-facing representation of the company.
- Customer service- and a results-oriented mindset, focused on enabling business objectives while ensuring legal compliance and risk mitigation.
- Experience and willingness to lead hands-on, large, and small-scale legal projects aligned with company objectives and key results.
- Ability to manage multiple projects at once, follow through, and meet deadlines.
- Experience attracting and developing talent.
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