Senior Legal Counsel

About Breakthrough Victoria

Victoria is home to some of the best scientific, digital and knowledge institutes, businesses, and founders in the world - all sharing a mission to discover the next breakthrough. Whether it’s the next generation of medical tech, designing sustainable food sources, or uncovering new ways to take action on climate change, Victorian innovators are already developing the research, technology and ideas that will have a positive impact for Victorians and transform our lives for the better. We target investments across five sectors: Advanced Manufacturing, Agri-food, Clean Economy, Digital Technologies, and Health & Life Sciences, across all investment stages from pre-seed start-ups to investing in scaling and growth.   

You will have worked in investment, startups, VC, funds management and/or financial services and have built a strong set of skills related to deal structuring, commerciality and technical ability which will allow you to become a critical business partner at all levels of the organisation.

Investing for Impact

We are working with founders, start-ups, businesses, investors, research institutions and government agencies to commercialise and accelerate ideas, innovations and technologies from lab to market. We invest across the capital lifecycle, from pre-seed to growth equity, including:   

• Early-stage innovations with strong commercial potential,   
• Venture capital investment to prepare companies for growth; through to  
• Mature companies wanting to scale up technologies, products and services

Breakthrough Victoria’s mission is to positively contribute to environmental and social advancements through our Investing for Impact objectives. 

About You

You will have worked in investment, startups, VC, funds management and/or financial services and have built a strong set of skills related to deal structuring, commerciality and technical ability which will allow you to become a critical business partner at all levels of the organisation.

With strong stakeholder management and influencing skills you are comfortable to lead on a wide range of complex transactions, working collaboratively across all levels of the organisation to deliver business-critical projects.

You can easily synthesize a broad range of information from various sources and identify innovative approaches and actively influence and support enhancements to practice and outcomes.

About the Role

Reporting to the General Counsel & Company Secretary, the role is part of a small in-house legal team, the Senior Legal Counsel will be primarily responsible for the provision of legal advice relating to Breakthrough Victoria’s investment and transaction activities.

The Senior Legal Counsel will work closely with the Investment Team to advise and structure investments so that they fulfill the company’s mandate.  This includes assisting with the negotiation of term sheets, conditions of investment, long form documentation and governance and compliance.  

The Senior Legal Counsel provides authoritative advice to internal stakeholders on a diverse range of legal issues including legislative reform, administrative law, statutory interpretation, commercial matters, confidentiality, privacy and data security related matters. 

Key Accountabilities

The Senior Legal Counsel will:

• Lead negotiations on a wide range of complex and high-value commercial transactions, including deal structuring across from Seed – Series D + investments.
• Provide authoritative written and oral commercial legal advice across the business, including on sensitive, complex and/or challenging legal issues including confidentiality agreements, service agreements, NDA’s and associated legislation and guidelines.
• Drive the drafting, review, negotiation and ongoing management of contracts/agreements.
• Draft, enhance, or implement policies and procedures to streamline operations relating to internal processes and capital transactions.
• Brief and manage in-house and external Legal Counsel to deliver enabling and advisory services to the business on both complex and general legal issues.
• Provide generalist legal and project support as needed to the company team members and board directors, including governance support as required.

Key Selection Criteria

The Senior Legal Counsel will be expected to possess the following key skills and experience:

• Legal Experience: Commercially astute, senior lawyer with at least 6+ years’ experience at a top tier law firm and/or as in-house Legal Counsel in investment, venture capital, superannuation fund, merger and acquisitions, asset management or similar. Demonstrated experience in investment structuring and robust negotiation and drafting skills across a wide range of commercial transactions.
• Business Acumen: The ability to balance commercial and legal considerations to deliver practical solutions. Have a pragmatic commercial focus with the ability to anticipate legal and compliance issues, needs and opportunities, and to respond in a proactive way.
• Stakeholder Management: Excellent stakeholder management at all levels of the business, experience dealing with boards, government departments and external legal firms. Identifies issues in common for one or more stakeholders and uses to build mutually beneficial partnerships; Identifies and responds to stakeholder’s underlying needs; Uses understanding of the stakeholder’s organisational context to ensure outcomes are achieved; Finds innovative solutions to resolve stakeholder issues.
• People Management: Ability to drive outcomes across teams internally and externally. Aligns team with the organisational values and goals through effective people management and modelling, clearly defines role expectations, monitors performance, provides timely and constructive feedback to facilitate employee development, ensures staff are effectively deployed through effective workforce planning practices.
• Written and Verbal Communication: Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, and the ability to liaise and negotiate effectively with a range of internal stakeholders. Prepares briefs, letters, emails and reports using clear, concise and grammatically correct language; ensures written communications contain necessary information to achieve their purpose; uses appropriate style and formats. Confidently conveys ideas and information in a clear and interesting way; clearly understands the target audience and the objectives of the communication; uses audience feedback to refine communication and ensure communications are understood; handles difficult and sensitive communications well.
• Planning and organising: Strong organisational skills and ability to balance priorities across the business. Identifies processes, tasks and resources required to achieve a goal; identifies more and less critical activities and operates accordingly, reviewing and adjusting as required; develops, implements and maintains systems and procedures to guide work and track progress; recognises barriers and finds effective ways to deal with them.
• Working Experience and Education: A Law degree with admission to practice as a lawyer in Victoria. Experience as a Counsel/Lawyer in a financial services or funds management organisation or an equivalently complex/regulated industry.

Applying for this role at Breakthrough Victoria

Breakthrough Victoria is an equal opportunity employer and actively promotes diversity, equity and inclusion in all its employment practices and policies. We strive to create a workplace, where the optimal mix of experiences, talent and capabilities in all areas, bring diversity of thought to our business and operations, and reflects the communities we serve.   

We’re a growing team and want our team now and into the future to grow with us. So if you think you have what it takes, but don't necessarily meet every single point on the job description, please still get in touch or apply. We welcome a chat to see if you could be a great fit.   

Flexible work, job share, part time working, flexible hours and a range of leave options are available to all our employees in all our roles.  

Please submit your resume/CV via Seek or LinkedIn, along with a brief cover letter addressing the key selection criteria.