Legal Director

About Affinity

Affinity is glob fast-scaling, digital-first AdTech company operating across multiple global markets. As we continue our journey toward accelerated international growth, product expansion, and AI-enabled innovation, we are strengthening our global governance and commercial legal infrastructure.

We are seeking a commercially astute and globally experienced legal leader to head our in-house legal function.

Role Overview

The Director - Legal will lead Affinity’s global legal function across all business verticals and geographies. This role combines commercial contracting excellence, regulatory oversight, governance leadership, and strategic business advisory.

The incumbent will supervise an in-house Legal Counsel and manage all external law firms and consultants globally, ensuring consistent legal standards across jurisdictions while enabling business velocity.

This is a highly strategic, business-facing role requiring strong SaaS product exposure, international contracting experience, and a pragmatic, solution-oriented mindset.

The role also requires strong familiarity with AI enabled products, emerging regulatory frameworks around artificial intelligence, and the ability to leverage AI tools to enhance legal efficiency and risk analysis.

Key Responsibilities

1. Strategic Legal Leadership

• Act as a trusted legal advisor to the CEO, SVP Finance, and Global Leadership Team.
• Provide commercially sound, risk-calibrated legal guidance aligned with Affinity’s global growth strategy.
• Embed legal as a proactive business enabler rather than a reactive control function.

2. Global Commercial Contracting

• Lead drafting, structuring, review, negotiation, and closure of:
• Global agreements
• Enterprise MSAs & SLAs
• Publisher & Advertiser contracts
• Technology partnerships & API integrations
• Data processing agreements
• International vendor and consultant agreements
• Ensure contract standardisation and global consistency.
• Oversee contract lifecycle management using SpotDraft (experience strongly preferred).
• Build contract playbooks and risk matrices for faster deal turnaround.

3. Regulatory, Risk & Compliance Governance

Drive global compliance across:

• Data privacy and data protection laws (GDPR, DPDP Act, etc.)
• Anti-corruption & competition laws
• Consumer protection regulations
• Digital advertising regulations
• Develop and implement legal risk dashboards for leadership visibility.
• Partner with Finance, HR, Tech & Product teams to mitigate regulatory exposure.

4. Global Entity Expansion Support

• Coordinate with local advisors in India, APAC, US & Europe.
• Support international expansion, new entity setups, and restructuring initiatives.

5. Intellectual Property & Technology Risk

• Oversee IP protection strategy across:
• Software platforms
• Algorithms & AI assets
• Branding & trademarks
• Content licensing
• Manage IP registrations, renewals, and infringement risk.
• Collaborate with Product & Engineering to proactively protect digital assets.

6. External Counsel Management

• Manage external law firms and consultants globally.
• Optimise legal spend and manage long-term strategic partnerships with firms.
• Ensure consistent global legal positioning across matters .

7. Legal Process Excellence & Digitisation

• Strengthen contract templates, approval workflows, and governance processes.
• Drive automation within SpotDraft and related legal tech platforms.
• Build scalable legal infrastructure aligned with a high-growth SaaS environment.
• Deliver legal awareness sessions for business teams.

8. Team Leadership

• Supervise and mentor in-house Legal Counsel.
• Build future legal capability aligned with business expansion.
• Establish performance standards and succession planning for the legal function.

Qualifications & Experience

Education

• LLB from a premier law school (mandatory).
• LLM or international legal qualification preferred.

Experience

• 10+ years of overall post-qualification legal experience.
• Minimum 5 years in a Global SaaS Product or Ad-Tech Company (mandatory).
• Prior experience in multinational in-house legal function or reputed international law firm.
• Demonstrated international contracting exposure across multiple jurisdictions.
• Experience managing global external counsel networks.
• Strong working knowledge of contract lifecycle management systems; SpotDraft experience a significant advantage.

Competencies

• Strong commercial acumen with pragmatic judgment and execution speed.
• Ability to influence senior leadership and negotiate complex global deals.
• Deep understanding of digital, SaaS, and data-driven business models.
• High ethical standards with strong governance orientation.
• Excellent stakeholder management across cultures and geographies.

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