Head of Legal & Compliance

Position Summary

The Head of Legal & Compliance is responsible for leading the Company's legal, compliance, and corporate governance functions, ensuring adherence to applicable laws, regulations, and industry best practices. This is a hands-on role that combines legal advisory, regulatory compliance, and company secretarial oversight while partnering closely with senior management to support business growth and manage legal and regulatory risks. May require travel to West Africa a few times per year.

Key Responsibilities

Legal & Compliance

• Lead the development, implementation, and continuous enhancement of the Company's legal and compliance framework, policies, procedures, and internal controls.
• Review and strengthen existing compliance programmes, including Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) frameworks.
• Serve as the primary liaison with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and manage all regulatory communications, submissions, inspections, and enquiries.
• Monitor regulatory developments and advise management on legal and compliance implications.
• Conduct compliance monitoring, risk assessments, internal reviews, and control testing to ensure ongoing regulatory compliance.
• Coordinate and support internal and external audits, regulatory inspections, and remediation efforts.
• Develop and deliver compliance awareness and training programmes across the organisation.

Legal Advisory & Corporate Governance

• Provide practical and commercially focused legal advice to management and business units.
• Draft, review, negotiate, and approve a broad range of commercial agreements, contracts, board resolutions, and other legal documentation.
• Serve as Company Secretary or oversee outsourced company secretarial functions, ensuring compliance with statutory and corporate governance requirements.
• Maintain legal, compliance, and governance documentation required for regulatory reviews and audits.
• Lead the digitalisation and automation of legal and compliance records to improve operational efficiency, governance, and regulatory compliance.

Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Lead the Legal & Compliance function while remaining actively involved in day-to-day legal matters, regulatory issues, escalations, and operational challenges.
• Build strong working relationships with regulators, external legal counsel, auditors, business partners, and internal stakeholders.
• Promote a culture of integrity, accountability, and compliance across the organisation.
• Support senior management with practical legal and compliance solutions that enable business objectives while managing regulatory risk.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in law (LLB or equivalent) is required. Admission to practice as a lawyer in Singapore or another common law jurisdiction is strongly preferred.
• 5-10 years of relevant post-qualification experience, preferably as an in-house legal counsel within large family-owned organisations and family offices.
• Strong stakeholder management - able to engage and influence senior management, business leaders and external stakeholders.
• Commercially minded - able to provide practical, business-oriented legal advice rather than taking a purely legalistic approach.
• Ability to challenge constructively - comfortable pushing back on business decisions where there are legal, regulatory or compliance risks, while still maintaining strong relationships with stakeholders.
• Demonstrated experience in commercial contracting, corporate governance, regulatory compliance, and legal risk management.
• Strong working knowledge of MAS regulations, AML/CFT requirements, KYC frameworks, and corporate governance practices.
• Experience serving as Company Secretary or overseeing corporate secretarial matters is an advantage.

Key Competencies

• Excellent interpersonal and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to build credibility across all levels of the organisation.
• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to provide practical, business-oriented legal advice.
• Excellent drafting, negotiation, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
• Hands-on leader who leads by example and actively supports the team through complex legal and regulatory matters.
• Demonstrates composure and sound judgment under pressure, with the ability to navigate ambiguity and deliver pragmatic solutions.
• High integrity, professionalism, and attention to detail.

Able to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.

To apply, please write to [Confidential Information] with the subject Application for Head of Legal & Compliance. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted with the next steps.