Senior Legal Counsel

Senior Legal Counsel – FNZ (India)

Department: Commercial Legal + India Legal

Location: Gurugram, India

Reports to: General Counsel APAC

Experience: 10+ years’ experience in commercial contracting with demonstrated senior advisory and governance responsibility

Role Purpose

The Senior Legal Counsel will support FNZ’s India and APAC business by delivering authoritative, enterprise‑level legal advice, with a strong focus on corporate governance, legal risk management, and senior stakeholder advisory, alongside complex commercial contracting.

The role requires a confident senior lawyer who can independently assess risk, articulate trade‑offs, and advise business leadership on how to progress in complex, ambiguous, or high‑pressure situations.

This role acts as the senior legal presence in India, supporting India Leadership by ensuring appropriate legal, governance, and risk leadership for FNZ’s India operations, and by influencing decision‑making at the management and regional leadership level.

While commercial contracting remains an important component, this role is not intended to be a pure transactional execution role and requires the ability to step back from documentation to provide forward‑looking judgement, risk framing, and clear recommendations.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide senior legal advisory support to India and APAC leadership on matters involving corporate governance, legal risk, regulatory interpretation, and complex decision‑making. Contribute to India‑specific legal governance frameworks, policies, escalation protocols, and reporting to align with APAC/Global Legal standards.
• Draft, review, and negotiate complex, high‑value, and strategically important commercial contracts, but with accountability for overall risk outcomes rather than document execution alone, including technology and platform services agreements, SaaS, outsourcing and managed services, supplier, licensing, and strategic partnership arrangements.
• Own and lead discussions on legal and contractual risk, including when matters are ambiguous, precedent is unclear, or business urgency is high.
• Take responsibility for intra-group agreements between FNZ entities, including both regulated entities and non-regulated entities across our global business , with attention to governance, authority matrices, and regulatory expectations.
• Act as a trusted senior advisor to business leaders, providing clear, structured, and persuasive advice that balances commercial objectives with legal and regulatory risk.
• Partner closely with business, risk, compliance, information security, and operations teams to deliver decisive, solution‑oriented legal advice, including in grey or ambiguous scenarios.
• Identify, assess, and manage legal and contractual risks, exercising sound judgment, taking ownership of recommendations, and escalating issues with clear options and rationale.
• Support regulatory and compliance matters impacting FNZ’s operations, including financial services regulation, data protection, employment law, outsourcing, and operational resilience.
• Support and manage junior members of the team, providing clear direction, coaching, and quality oversight to build capability and accountability.
• Demonstrate the ability to combine technology‑enabled efficiency with senior legal judgment rather than relying solely on process or automation.

Legal Technology, AI & CLM

• Leverage CLM and legal technology tools as enablers, not substitutes, for senior legal judgement, ensuring that technology‑driven processes are aligned with FNZ’s risk appetite and governance standards.

Experience & Capabilities

• At least 10+ years’ post‑qualification experience with a meaningful portion spent in senior in‑house advisory roles or leading law firms.
• Strong background in commercial contracting combined with visible experience advising leadership on high‑risk or high‑impact matters.
• Demonstrated executive presence, with the ability to credibly engage, challenge, and influence senior stakeholders.
• Proven capability to translate complex legal and regulatory issues into clear, structured advice and decisive recommendations. Evidence of strong judgement, confidence, and ownership when navigating grey areas, rather than relying on process, precedent, or escalation alone.
• Exposure to employment law & HR compliance, litigation and dispute resolution oversight, liaising with external law firms.
• Experience of managing and supporting junior staff with evidence of training and developing junior lawyers to become high-performing members of the legal team.
• Exposure to fintech, financial services, SaaS, or platform-based business models preferred.
• Experience working in a global environment with cross-border stakeholders and multiple time zones. Experience operating in environments where ambiguity, incomplete information, and competing priorities are common.

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from a recognised university  in India.
• Additional certifications or training in commercial law, financial services regulation, technology law or data protection are an advantage.

Key Attributes

• Strong executive presence with the ability to influence, challenge, and advise senior stakeholders credibly.
• Commercially focused with a strong understanding of business drivers
• Structured thinker, able to present issues, options, and recommendations succinctly and persuasively.
• Practical, solutions-oriented approach to risk management
• Strong ownership, attention to detail, and accountability
• Collaborative, adaptable, and delivery-focused mindset
• Comfortable working flexibly across time zones, including alignment with UK/ Australia business hours

KPIs / Success Measures

• Provide timely, high‑quality legal advice aligned with APAC Legal strategy and risk appetite.
• Effectively identify, manage, and escalate material legal and regulatory risks in line with FNZ frameworks.
• Delivery of clear, timely, and commercially pragmatic legal advice that enables informed business decision‑making.
• Maintain strong regulatory and compliance outcomes with no material breaches attributable to legal oversight
• Build trusted relationships and cross border collaboration with APAC and India stakeholders, evidenced by positive feedback
• Operate as an integrated extension of the APAC Legal team, contributing to regional initiatives and standards

Team Environment

 The India Legal Team operates as an extension of the APAC Legal function, providing integrated legal support across the region and reporting into the APAC General Counsel.

About FNZ

FNZ is committed to opening up wealth so that everyone, everywhere can invest in their future on their terms. We know the foundation to do that already exists in the wealth management industry, but complexity holds firms back. 

We created wealth’s growth platform to help. We provide a global, end-to-end wealth management platform that integrates modern technology with business and investment operations. All in a regulated financial institution. 

We partner with the world’s leading financial institutions, with over US$2.4 trillion in assets on platform (AoP).
Together with our clients, we empower nearly 30 million people across all wealth segments to invest in their future.