Head of Legal

This Head of Legal hire at Zinc will have broad ownership of the Core Legal function. You will own commercial contracts end-to-end, lead on UK GDPR and data privacy, oversee our contract management infrastructure, and shape how AI is governed across the legal team. You will lead an existing team of 5+ and act as the primary legal partner for our revenue, retention and technology functions. You will also work closely with Compliance and InfoSec on SOC 2 and our Trust Framework, manage the team's budget and tooling, and build the resources that let the wider business handle routine legal questions without needing direct legal input. As this is a newly created role, much of the structure, process and tooling is still to be defined. You will report directly to our General Counsel, Hamraj Coakley-Gulamali and have significant influence over how the Legal department develops.

Key Responsibilities

• Commercial legal — owning Zinc’s commercial contracts function end-to-end; new business agreements, renewals, amendments, and the legal workload that keeps deals moving and revenue protected.
• Data privacy and UK GDPR — owning Zinc’s privacy legal framework. Our product processes sensitive personal data at scale — criminal record checks, financial histories, and employment data — which means UK GDPR is not a background consideration; it shapes what we can build, how we deploy it, and how we explain it to customers. This requires genuine privacy expertise: data processing agreements, DPIAs, subject rights, and advising the product team on what is and isn’t permissible.
• Contract infrastructure — overseeing our contract management system; turning the contract book from a manual archive into a living, searchable, data-rich asset.
• Legal strategist — our playbooks and infrastructure are constantly changing as we scale; you need to be comfortable building on your feet and happy dealing with ambiguity.
• Employment and HR — cover the usual suite of employment and HR issues as and when they arise in line with our People and HR team.
• Legal team leadership — managing a full legal team of 5+ legal specialists, maintaining quality, capacity, and morale under a lean headcount model.
• AI governance and deployment — owning and evolving deployment of AI across our legal systems, leaning in to leverage AI where possible whilst enforcing the highest standards of output across the team and the business.
• Compliance partnership — working closely with our Regulatory Compliance and InfoSec teams on cross-function legal needs; Trust Framework, SOC 2, UK GDPR, and anything customer-facing that needs a legal view.
• Stakeholder management — acting as the primary legal partner for revenue, retention and technology; building the function’s reputation as an enabler, not a blocker and managing our existing portfolio of processes.
• Self-serve and knowledge — building the resources that allow the business to answer common legal questions without always coming to the team; reducing noise, increasing quality.
• Budget — managing the legal team’s budget and tooling investment, aligned to Zinc’s model of technology and AI before people.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Experienced legal operator with 7+ years PQE (or equivalent), including meaningful time in-house or in a commercial legal function. You understand what it means for legal to serve a commercial organisation, not just advise one.
• Ready to lead — you’ve been a senior lawyer and you’re ready to own a function. That means hiring decisions, team health, process design, and the occasional difficult conversation with the GC.
• Commercial instinct — Zinc needs legal to move deals, not slow them. You understand that risk management and commercial velocity are not opposites.
• Legal tech and operations literate — you know CLM systems, AI-assisted drafting and redlining, and you’re actively curious about what AI can do for a lean legal team. This is not optional at Zinc.
• High EQ — you’ll inherit a team that is professional, talented, and ambitious. How you build trust with your direct reports and manage your relationship with your team matters more than your CV.
• Strong communicator — you’ll be translating legal risk for a non-legal leadership team, negotiating with customers, and working with external counsel. Clarity matters.
• Comfortable with ambiguity — the playbook is incomplete. You’ll write it.

Desirable

• Experience in a fast-growing SaaS or technology business.
• Background in UK data protection and GDPR (relevant given Zinc’s product and regulatory environment).
• Familiarity with employment law or compliance-adjacent areas.
• Knowledge of background screening, HR tech, or the broader compliance and RegTech space.

What we offer

• 24 days holiday + Bank Holidays + your birthday off.
• £1200 annual benefits allowance (ThanksBen, from month 2).
• Early finish Fridays (16:00).
• Yearly company retreat abroad.
• 30 days to Work from anywhere.
• Enhanced Maternity, Paternity, and Adoption Leave (13 weeks full pay, 17 weeks half pay, then SMP for maternity, 1 month full pay for paternity/adoption).
• Statutory pension with NEST (3% employer, 5% employee).
• Zinc shares, issued through the EMI Scheme.
• Unlimited access to Spill Therapy.
• Company socials, quarterly team socials.
• Free Monday lunches.
• Nursery workplace benefit scheme (Yellownest).
• Option to lease an electric car through Electric Car Scheme.
• Celebrated Zinc anniversaries.