TheFork, a TripAdvisor® Company is the leading online restaurants reservation platform in Europe, Australia and Latin America, present in 22+ countries around the globe.

TheFork connects restaurants and diners.

Through TheFork (website and application), as well as through Tripadvisor, users can easily select a restaurant according to preference criteria (such as the localisation, type of cuisine, restaurant type and average price), consult user reviews, check real-time availability and instantly book online. From the restaurants side, TheFork provides them with a software solution, TheFork Manager, which enables restaurants to optimize reservations management, streamline operations and ultimately improve service and revenues.

TheFork team aims to inspire and enable people to confidently discover, experience and share food. We operate under a shared set of values that define how we do business and how we interact with our colleagues, our partners, our customers and our food community. We strongly believe that building a diverse workforce of people from all walks of life helps us have a richer, more vibrant, more successful workplace.

About the Role

As Head of Legal, TheFork, you will oversee all of TheFork’s global legal matters and will serve as a member of TheFork’s executive leadership team. You will provide direction, guidance and assistance on complex legal and regulatory matters globally and will have the following areas of expertise: commercial transactions, mergers and acquisitions, employment law, regulatory, general corporate law, commercial contracts, litigation, intellectual property, payments, and compliance.

Head of Legal, TheFork will lead, develop, and supervise TheFork’s legal group and work to ensure all of TheFork’s lawyers function as true partners with the business. You will coordinate and communicate with other lawyers and business leaders at Tripadvisor around the world. You will also supervise outside counsel and other contract legal counsel.

Major responsibilities:

• Actively participate in the resolution of a broad range of strategic planning and decision-making, incorporating TheFork’s mission in all decisions and fostering an organization responsive to the needs of TheFork’s community of restaurants and diners.
• Provide innovative and business-oriented legal counsel and execution of significant strategic initiatives, including possible acquisitions, joint ventures, expansions, product/service offerings and other possible investments, as well as negotiate and structure major contracts and licensing agreements.
• Provide legal counsel and strategic advice to colleagues on complex and challenging employment issues.
• Actively champion TheFork’s mission, ethics and integrity by ensuring that the company’s compliance policies protect the company from risk, comply with all applicable laws and regulations, and reinforce TheFork’s values.
• Advise the company on the risks, including litigation, of possible business decisions and advise on how to best manage those risks.
• Counsel and identify solutions for unprecedented and complicated matters that require consideration of overlapping, unharmonized and novel regulatory, legal and business requirements and trends.
• Oversee strategy for the protection and development of all forms of TheFork’s intellectual property.
• Lead all lawyers and employees in TheFork’s legal group, promoting a values-driven, highly engaged organizational culture and fostering collaborative relationships among the various stakeholders; supervision (direct and indirect) of all lawyers and employees within TheFork’s legal group.
• Select and implement standard legal technology and systems as needed, in coordination with Tripadvisor’s global legal team; provide administrative management relating to the legal department including budgeting, hiring of professional staff and contract attorneys, personnel reports and administrative procedures designed to maintain and improve efficiency, communication and cost management.
• Manage outside counsel; establish procedures for evaluating the quality and cost of outside counsel.

About You: 

• 15+ years’ experience as a qualified attorney practicing law in Europe, most of which should be in “in house” counsel leadership roles. Experience at an international law firm a plus.
• Strong experience as a leader building and managing legal teams at global consumer focused e-commerce/Internet companies is highly preferred.
• Experience in m&a, commercial transactions, employment, litigation, regulatory (e.g., e-commerce, data privacy, advertising, consumer protection), intellectual property and payments preferred.
• Fluent in English and either French or Italian. Proficiency in another European language a plus. 
• Superb communication skills (spoken and written) required, communicating well with external parties and all colleagues within the business, from the executive team to junior levels.
• You enjoy operating in a fast moving, often changing environment. You pride yourself on having a positive disposition and sense of humor, and on being creative, collaborative, and unflappable.
• Passion for the restaurant industry a must.
• Role based in Milan; Paris considered; other locations negotiable.

#LI-SA1