General Counsel

Sky–formerly MakerDAO–is the ecosystem behind Sky Protocol, one of the most established and trusted decentralized finance protocols, operating since 2017. Backed by $15B TVL across the Ecosystem and over $200M in annual earnings, the protocol ranks among the top five in DeFi.

With over 7-year security track record, over $11B combined native stablecoin in circulation, it’s powered by the cutting-edge Sky Agents Framework for autonomous and scalable operations (learn more: Sky 2025, Sky Primitives: The building blocks of the Sky Agent Framework, Overview of Sky Mechanics).

Sky Frontier Foundation is the innovation and acceleration arm of Sky Protocol, built to accelerate its growth and unlock new frontiers in DeFi, AI, and digital finance. Sky Frontier Foundation incubates new Sky Agents, funds breakthrough technologies, and bridges DeFi with AI-powered systems. Working with Sky Frontier Foundation means shaping the architecture of tomorrow’s financial systems while moving at the pace of frontier innovation.

The General Counsel will define and lead the legal function for Sky Ecosystem. This leadership role spans two core dimensions: regulatory expertise, which the General Counsel will personally own, and the building and the leadership of an interdisciplinary function covering capital tokenization, complex IP, due diligence, and legal operations. The role requires a leader who can integrate across highly specialized legal, technical, and operational domains and partner with, challenge, and direct senior internal experts and external counsel across these areas.

The function must operate effectively at both strategic and operational levels: understanding and resolving highly complex legal and structural challenges, while maintaining strong execution across day-to-day legal work.

The General Counsel will serve the entire Sky Ecosystem, be employed by Sky Frontier Foundation, and report to the Board through a designated Board Director.

Strategic objective: Build and lead an interdisciplinary legal function by establishing the operating model, accountability framework, and reporting protocols that give Sky Ecosystem the legal readiness and regulatory foundation to scale and shape the future of finance.

Main responsibilities:

1. Build and Lead the Legal Function

• Define and lead an interdisciplinary legal function spanning regulatory, capital tokenization, business contracts, complex IP, and legal operations

• Act as strategic legal partner to senior internal experts and external counsel - set the questions, direct their research, challenge their conclusions, and synthesize their inputs into board-ready risk positions

• Work with internal senior legal experts and external counsel on the protocol's legal architecture design

• Design, implement, and enforce the legal aspects of the Sky Agent Framework - across entity structure, IP and licensing, operating, collaboration, and enforcement frameworks

• Manage relationships with external counsel across the function's substantive areas

• Design the function's operating architecture driven by AI and accountability framework - including intake, triage, matter tracking, team structure, leadership reporting, and AI tooling embedded across workflows

• Run the day-to-day legal operations pipeline - prioritize the team's work, review output, raise quality standards, and institute reusable templates and playbooks

2. Regulatory Strategy and Compliance

• Develop and maintain a coherent regulatory strategy that anticipates the evolving DeFi and TradFi landscape, translating regulatory risk into clear organizational guidance

• Act as the expert legal advisor on regulatory exposure and lead material interactions with regulators

• Own key regulatory relationships across relevant jurisdictions, with particular depth in US frameworks governing digital assets, securities, and financial services

Essential Experience

• 7+ years post-qualification legal experience, with at least 3 years in a senior legal leadership role (General Counsel, Deputy GC, or equivalent)

• 5+ years of US regulatory experience

• 3+ years of hands-on DeFi/crypto legal experience

• Proven track record of building or scaling a legal function in a high-growth environment

• Actively uses AI tooling within legal workflows

Core Competencies

• Designs functions and translates operating intent into systems that run effectively and efficiently with a high-level ownership mindset

• Operates as a strategic peer to senior leadership with strong communication and stakeholder management skills

• Entrepreneurial mindset, comfortable operating in lean, autonomous, startup-like environments

• Proven analytical skillset with the ability to produce clear metrics and management reporting