Legal Counsel

Our Purpose

At Xero, we're here to help you supercharge your business. We do this by automating routine tasks, surfacing actionable insights and connecting businesses with the right data, advisors and apps. When that happens, we're not only making life better for small business, we'll be building a stronger economy that can change the world.

The successful candidate will be responsible for partnering with the business and providing legal advice in relation to matters impacting the day to day operations of Xero, and also ensuring that our operations are compliant with relevant legislation. The successful candidate is expected to be a business partner to members of the Asia-Pacific Go-To-Market teams including relevant marketing, operations, sales, partnerships and customer experience teams. The candidate will also assist the broader legal team on various global legal projects and initiatives.

This role will report to the GM Legal for APAC and work closely with the wider global Legal team (including teams like Privacy and IP), external advisors and strategic partners to support Xero's legal and compliance function in the region. Strong preference will be given to candidates in Melbourne and we are also open to suitable candidates with in-house experience in Sydney or New Zealand. Candidates with relevant experience in one or more of the following areas will be viewed favourably: litigation/regulatory investigations, employment law, advising in Asia and/or in-house experience at an innovative high-growth company.

• Work closely with Xero's Go-To-Market teams in APAC to help drive strategic relationships and initiatives for Xero locally, but with a global mindset. This often involves working with other legal teams like Privacy and IP, especially where the use of data is required to drive strategic goals in the APAC region.
• Work as an integrated part of the global legal team to provide support on global matters that impact the APAC region, including Partnerships, product and technology.
• Provide advice to internal Xero stakeholders on legal aspects of their defined areas (including Sales, Marketing, the Partnerships/ Ecosystem team, the Xero Customer Support team, PX (HR), WX (Workplace Experience / Office Management), and region-specific product and partnerships).
• Review, negotiate and draft key legal documents, such as vendor supply agreements, marketing partner agreements, data exchange agreements, integration agreements, procurement contracts, sponsorship agreements, partnership/API integration/customer referral agreements with banks and other large companies.
• Review various marketing materials and comms for the region including potential radio and TVC advertising, social media content and various marketing and operational emails to existing subscribers.
• Ensure the business is informed and compliant with any relevant existing or proposed legislation that may impact the operations of the business.
• Drive and/or manage within the global legal team projects to manage workflow, improve operational efficiency, achieve global and regional education and training, and enable compliance.
• Contribute to internal policy and process development.
• Liaise and collaborate with legal team peers to deliver holistic legal function outcomes.
• Assist with investigating and responding to enquiries from law enforcement agencies, regulators and some courts and tribunals relating to customer information held by Xero.
• Advising on incident management and customer related issues/disputes.
• Assist with any M&A activity in the APAC region, as required.
• Liaise with and manage Xero's external legal advisors, as required.
• Responding to ad hoc queries in the Xero team's legal inbox.

• 3 - 6 years PQE (in-house legal experience desirable)
• Demonstrated ability to be a commercially minded business partner to busy Go-To-Market teams in an often fast paced environment
• Current legal practicing certificate in AU or NZ
• Experience providing legal advice to companies in the technology sector (desirable)
• Experience negotiating & drafting agreements in a commercial context
• Experience advising on consumer law matters and reviewing various marketing materials
• Experience with data protection regulation (desirable)
• Experience liaising with regulators and statutory/law enforcement bodies (desirable)
• Experience with financial services regulation and competition law (desirable)
• Experience advising in Asia (desirable)
• Experience in employment law and/or litigation/regulatory investigations (desirable)
• Strong drafting, analytical, and interpretation skills
• Strong commercial acumen and a pragmatic approach
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Why Xero?

Offering very generous paid leave to use however you'd like (plus statutory holidays), dedicated paid leave to care for your physical and mental wellbeing as well as an Employee Assistance Program to access mental health care for you and your family, health insurance, life insurance, and income protection, wellbeing and sports programmes, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices, flexible working, career development, and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you'll do the best work of your life at Xero.