About the role

As the Head of Legal and Compliance at Hokodo, you will lead the development of our legal and compliance function, overseeing key projects such as financing rounds and international expansions and ensuring adherence to regulatory obligations. Your strategic guidance will be critical in managing risks across various domains, from corporate and commercial to regulatory compliance and litigation. Collaborating closely with senior leadership, you'll drive the negotiation and structuring of complex transactions while optimising legal spend and fostering best practices. This role offers the opportunity to shape the legal and compliance landscape of a high-growth startup, making a direct impact on our trajectory and success.

Location: We would like you to work from our office in London or Paris for two days per week, joining our team of dedicated professionals and making your mark on the world of B2B e-commerce.

About Hokodo

We’re an international and diverse team, based in London, Vilnius and Paris, working to modernise B2B payments.

• Our B2B Buy Now, Pay Later solution enables merchants to offer credit terms to their business customers instantly, resulting in a 40% average increase in revenue for integrated merchants.

• We are scaling rapidly across Western Europe, with a list of stellar clients and have raised a total of over $50 million to support our mission of enabling 1 million businesses to access a better way to pay by 2025.

• Join us in our efforts, as we have already made good progress with 50,000+ businesses regularly using Hokodo, but need your support to take us to the next level!

What you’ll be doing - If you get excited by the following, this is the role for you. 

• Lead the legal and compliance function within Hokodo.

• Support the management team with strategic decision making on topics such as international expansion and development of our payment, lending and insurance products.

• Support and manage the legal structuring, negotiation and contracting for key projects such as debt and equity financing rounds, new product development, and the launch of new partnerships.

• Ensure we remain compliant with our regulatory obligations in particular in relation to our regulated payments and insurance entities.

• Ensure our corporate, IP, compliance, commercial and litigation risks are identified and managed.

• Oversight of our compliance infrastructure including our strategy and roadmap, policies and procedures, monitoring plan.

• Manage our relationships with external regulators and legal advisers, and ensure our legal spend is optimised.

• Develop best practices and training to help the business manage risks and drive the implementation of improved processes to help us scale.

Who we’re looking for - At Hokodo, we prioritise hiring individuals who share our mission and values, and possess the right attitudes and behaviours for success. While some of the listed requirements may be important, don't worry if you don't meet all of them, we’d still like to hear from you. 

• At least 5 years experience post-qualification as a lawyer in the UK or EU

• Experience operating in a senior legal role within a UK or EU regulated financial services company

• Familiarity with payments regulations in the UK or EU

• Experience negotiating or managing complex transactions such as equity or debt financing 

• Strategic thinker who can evaluate complex trade-offs to reach pragmatic implementable recommendations

• Ability to deal with ambiguity and work well in a fast-paced environment, without sacrificing attention to detail

• Comfortable managing complex stakeholder relationships including  the board and internal and external executives and regulatory authorities.  

• Comfort working in English, either as a first language or business fluent second language

Nice to have: 

• Exposure to work in an international environment

• Experience working with debt financing or securitisation structures

• French speaking

Interview Process

• Intro, company fit and run through career history with the Talent team - 30-45 minutes - Video Call 

• Technical, competency and team fit interview with the CEO - 60 minutes - Video Call

• Case Study - Prepare a recommendation on a legal topic and present to the CEO and another member of leadership team - 60 minutes - Video Call

• Meet the team and Co Founder - Circa 90 minutes - Face 2 Face

What’s in it for you?

We’re offering the chance to really make a difference to Hokodo and the wider B2B payments and e-commerce industry. The opportunity for personal growth in a fast-moving startup is massive. Your opinion and feedback will be heard and valued. You'll feel a part of a very special team.

We offer a highly competitive salary and benefits package, including share options.

📈 Share Options

🏖️ Holiday entitlement : 25 days + bank holidays

🎓 Annual Learning and Development budget

✈️ Globetrotter travel policy: Spend up to 60 days abroad each calendar year

🏥 Health Insurance

🫂 Taking well being seriously: Access to qualified therapist, confidentially via video or chat through Spill

👶 Enhanced Parental Leave

🌴 Yearly offsites and other company socials: Previously, we have been to Malta & Majorca, as well as regular meetups in London, Paris and Lithuania. 

🧓 Pension: (we know this is not really a benefit - but we get asked a lot about pension contributions) Employer contribution of 3% and individual contribution of 5% based on qualified earnings.

Our values

Hokodo is more than a place to work. We're passionate about making our industry better and aren't afraid of the competition. We pride ourselves on our culture of down to earth employees who are always willing to go the extra mile to help each other out!

• Own the Outcome - We’re committed to our tasks, and take pride in the outcome. It’s never “not my job”. We are bold, we are brave, and we embrace change in all its forms. 

• Trust and Build Trust - We are committed to earning and fostering trust through honest communication and deliberate actions. We support our team and value each other’s time, input, and take local decisions where possible. 

• Never Be Satisfied - We challenge the norms and act boldly, even if it means failing. We are reflective, always learn from our mistakes, and continuously seek feedback and ways to improve. When something’s not quite right, we crave to fix it. We’re open to being challenged, and challenge others openly. 

• No Passion, No Point - We bring passion and energy to everything we do. We get a lot done, and we have a good time doing it. We take every opportunity to celebrate our hard work, our wins - and some of our failures too! 

• Be Genuine (No BS) - We are truthful and honest in our actions. We embrace and respect our individuality and encourage people to speak their mind. We are transparent and committed to doing what’s best for each other, our customers and our company. Put simply, we care. 

Don’t tick all of the boxes? Neither do we.

We are driven by hiring not only by experience and relevance for the role but also our mission and values, and possess the right attitudes and behaviours for success. We celebrate anything ‘outside of the box’, so if you don’t meet all of the listed tickbox criteria, please do still apply as we’d love to hear from you.

The diversity of our team reflects the diversity of our community and customers. We not only welcome but celebrate diverse communities. We feel we have an empowering environment where everyone is supported and respected, and we want you to feel this too. We welcome new ideas, thinking and approaches and listen intently, and we are strongly committed to learning and improving on this as we grow.