AddressXero is a beautiful, easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping advisors grow and thrive.
At Xero, our purpose is to make life better for people in small business, their advisors, and communities around the world. This purpose sits at the centre of everything we do. We support our people to do the best work of their lives so that they can help small businesses succeed through better tools, information and connections. Because when they succeed they make a difference, and when millions of small businesses are making a difference, the world is a more beautiful place.
How you'll make an impact
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 key members of the Go To Market team in New Zealand including its Country Manager, Head of Marketing, Head of Operations, Sales Director and their respective 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, Regulatory 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 New Zealand and the candidate will ideally be able to attend one of the NZ Xero offices 1-2 times a week. We are also open to suitable candidates with in-house experience in Australia, ideally based in Melbourne or Sydney.
What you'll do
- Work closely with Xero's Go To Market team in NZ 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 Regulatory, especially where the use of data is required to drive strategic goals in NZ.
- Work as an integrated part of the global legal team to provide support on global matters that impact the NZ 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.
What you'll bring with you
- 4 to 7 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 NZ or AU
- 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)
- Strong drafting, analytical, and interpretation skills
- Ability to take a proactive and creative approach to managing/solving legal issues
- Ability to convey complex legal matters in a digestible, plain-english format
- Keenness to develop meaningful relationships across the business through personable stakeholder engagements
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.
Our collaborative and inclusive culture is one we're immensely proud of. We know that a diverse workforce is a strength that enables businesses, including ours, to better understand and serve customers, attract top talent and innovate successfully. We are a member of Pride in Diversity, in recognition of our inclusive workplace. Our goal is to make sure you feel welcome and supported to do the best work of your life.
At Xero we embrace diversity and inclusion and value a #challenge mindset. Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single competency or experience . If you are excited about this role, but your past experience doesn't align perfectly, we encourage you to apply anyway. You could be just the right person for this role and Xero. If you have any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at time of application and throughout the interview process.
