Overview
This role is a net-new, function-owning position responsible for the global suite of derivatives products and trading products across multiple separately licensed entities and venues. The focus is global derivatives structuring strategy, including product structure, venue and entity architecture, clearing models, and delivery of a coherent derivatives offering to clients.
Responsibilities
- Own global derivatives structuring strategy, including:
- Product structure
- Venue and entity architecture
- Clearing models
- How a single coherent derivatives offering is delivered to clients across several separately licensed entities
- Partner with Regulatory Legal to solve cross-entity problems that sit in no single product, including:
- Hub-and-spoke architecture
- Unified balances
- Cross-margining
- Where risk and client relationships actually sit across the group
- Serve as the named senior legal owner for derivatives and trading product lines, embedded in the product launch process from the start rather than consulted at the end.
- Lead and build the team by:
- Hiring, levelling, and developing senior derivatives counsel across jurisdictions
- Building depth and succession for a function that is currently thin at the top
- Act as the senior legal counterpart to Global Policy and Government Relations for derivatives regulatory engagement, including:
- Pre-socialising positions with regulators and internal leadership before they land
- Engagement with the CFTC, NFA, FCA, BMA, CySEC and others
- Support supervised estates that carry derivatives permissions in collaboration with Regulatory Legal, including:
- Continuous supervisory relationships
- New permissions and variations tied to product launches
- Provide in-house structuring judgment and direct external counsel when specialist input is required.
- Additional duties and responsibilities as assigned
Requirements
- Attorney admitted to practice in the US, or qualified lawyer (Solicitor/Barrister of England & Wales, Irish Solicitor/Barrister, or equivalent admitted in an EU Member State).
- 18+ years’ post-qualification experience (PQE) in financial services regulatory law gained at a regulated financial services institution, major liquidity provider, or in a law firm/private practice supporting such clients.
- Demonstrated ability to independently own BAU regulatory workstreams.
- Experience supporting regulator engagement (e.g., with the CFTC, NFA, FCA, Cysec, or an equivalent EU competent authority), including:
- Notifications
- Information requests
- Supervisory correspondence
- Substantial senior in-house or equivalent experience in derivatives legal, with demonstrated ownership of structuring strategy rather than transactional execution alone.
- Deep, expert-level command of at least one of the following derivatives regulatory regimes:
- US (CFTC, NFA; FCM, DCM and DCO structures)
- UK (FCA)
- EEA
- Offshore regime (e.g., Bermuda)
- High degree of fluency in at least one other listed regime (no single regime is treated as the required one; genuine mastery of one and strong working command of a second is required).
- Direct experience with virtual asset markets. This combination is scarce and is the core of the role.
- Experience structuring a product offering across multiple licensed entities in different jurisdictions, including a view on where activity, risk, and the client relationship should sit.
- Track record of building or materially scaling a legal function or team, including hiring, levelling, and succession.
- Ability to operate at function level:
- Set strategy for the function as a whole
- Organize to stay ahead of the regulatory perimeter
- Hold senior lawyers to account for results and behaviour, not only output
- Credibility with regulators and judgment to take positions in front of them.
- Comfort operating as the senior legal voice in a fast-moving, product-led business where the regulatory perimeter changes underneath you, and comfort staying close to the work rather than managing at a distance.
Preferred Qualifications
- Exposure to prediction markets, margin lending, or tokenized and structured products.
- Experience integrating acquired regulated entities and their legal teams into a group legal function.
Compensation & Benefits
- Compensation Range: $232.1K - $517K
Hiring Process & Additional Notes
- Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis unless a specific application deadline is stated in the job posting.
- Applicants are permitted to redact or remove information on their resume that identifies age, date of birth, or dates of attendance at or graduation from an educational institution.
- Qualified applicants with criminal histories are considered for employment on the team, assessed consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.
- Candidates may be asked to complete job-related skills or work-style assessments as part of the hiring process; results are considered alongside experience and interviews and are not the sole basis for an employment decision.
Location
Not specified in the job posting.