About the Job

Sovrn is seeking an experienced attorney to assume the role of Sr. Corporate Counsel. As Sr. Corporate Counsel you are a key business partner to Sovrn’s market-facing leaders. You will be responsible for leading corporate strategic and tactical legal initiatives and providing senior management with quick and thoughtful advice on a variety of matters. The position is responsible for managing Sovrn’s commercial contracts, ensuring Sovrn's compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as well as managing the company’s legal affairs and outside counsel. The Sr. Corporate Counsel is directly involved in business transactions, including the negotiation of business critical contracts, M&A transactions and the company’s financing transactions.

About You

You are driven and have proven the ability to independently manage the legal function in a high-paced environment. You have experience and expertise in commercial contracts, privacy regulations and corporate transactions.

The successful candidate will have:

• Ability to learn and add value to others through collaboration (customers, business partners, and colleagues).
• The ability to work collaboratively. We’re looking for someone with strategic and operational experience who is able to solve the business needs of the organization with a pragmatic, solution-oriented legal approach.
• 6 -10 years of relevant experience; combination of 4+ years with outside firm and 2+ years in-house preferred.
• Experience with or knowledge of U.S. and international privacy and data protection laws, regulations and standards. Direct experience with implementation of GDPR-compliance programs preferred.
• An eagerness for working and learning in fast-paced, dynamic environments.
• Pragmatic problem-solver with a high degree of self awareness.
• Experience in a technology-based growth company preferred.
• J.D. degree and membership in at least one US state bar (CO preferred).

What you’ll be doing:

• Contract and Transaction Support: Reviews and negotiates customer and business partner contracts. Drafts and negotiates privacy and data protection terms for revenue, vendor, and business partner agreements. Serves as key lawyer/legal advisor on all major business transactions, including financings, acquisitions, divestitures and joint ventures.
• Compliance: Acts as Compliance Officer and Data Protection Officer. Provides the following:
• Drives General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance initiative, including being a key voice of interpretation of regulations and related business response.
• Partners closely with and advises our security, product and other business teams on privacy and data protection-related legal matters.
• Evaluates the impact of U.S. and international legislative, regulatory, legal developments and industry guidelines involving privacy and security.
• Participates in cross-functional company projects related to data protection and privacy by design and default.
• Develops and leads internal compliance programs.
• Corporate Governance: Manages corporate resolutions and key areas of governance, assuming responsibility that company conducts its business in compliance with Delaware law and other applicable securities laws and regulations. Advises on legal aspects of the company’s financings, including assessing and advising on current and future business structures and legal entities.
• Outside Counsel: Manages selection, retention, and evaluation of outside counsel, displaying expertise for retaining the right level of counsel at the right fee structure/budget for differ. Ability to manage and accurately forecast legal fees to an annual budget.
• Legal Policies and Program Management: Participates in the definition and development of corporate policies, procedures and programs and provides continuing counsel and guidance on legal matters and on legal implications of all matters. Develops and leads corporate legal strategy and provide expert and strategic legal advice to management.
• Manage Risk/Manage Litigation: Set internal governance policies and manage the impact of external factors. Evaluate and weigh multiple inputs and impacts of any decision or course of action. Anticipate issues and estimate risks. Identify solutions that will eliminate or mitigate risks. Judges the merits of major court cases filed against or on behalf of the company, works with the appropriate executive(s) to define a strategic defense and approves settlements of disputes where warranted.

Position Reports to: CFO

About Sovrn

We spend a great deal of our time online. Whether it’s for information, commerce, or entertainment, each of us has come to depend on what we research, discover, and share. Publishers – those who create and curate content – are what makes the Internet great. Yet these publishers practice their craft largely alone, in siloes – without reference points or insightful understanding about where they sit in the grand scheme of things. To add to the challenge, once a Publisher’s content is in the wild, then the task of building engagement, growing a loyal following and enriching the engagement with that following can sometimes feel like shots in the dark or worse, a black box. Moreover, making money from their craft can be a complex task for any independent publisher who might prioritize generating content first and money second.

Sovrn believes that independent publishers are the Internet's vibrancy. As a partner and advocate to tens of thousands of independent publishers, Sovrn provides tools, technologies and services that help publishers (a) make money; (b) get distribution to grow their audience; and (c) access a massive data commons providing extraordinary insights.

The landscape of content networks, adtech vendors, and the myriad of buy-side / sell-side companies can be a complete maze for any reasonable person to decipher. Sovrn cuts through the noise and simplifies things with a basic, straightforward mission:

Help content creators do more of what they want to do – and less of what they don’t