Senior Corporate Counsel Lead, Middle East Cluster - Microsoft

Microsoft has an immediate opportunity for a highly skilled and experienced attorney to lead its Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs (CELA) work in the Middle East Cluster (MEC), which includes Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and Jordan. The attorney will oversee legal and government affairs issues affecting Microsoft’s sales and marketing operations in MEC and will be a member of the Microsoft MEC Leadership Team. 

The attorney will work as part of the Middle East and Africa (MEA) CELA team that includes government affairs professionals, attorneys, investigators, and business professionals.

Specific responsibilities of the position include:

• Ensuring Microsoft is in compliance with all laws and regulations, in coordination with HR, Finance and the business leadership team;
• Partnering with and managing a government affairs specialist in MEC to represent Microsoft in external forums on legal, regulatory, policy and similar issues;
• Partnering with the commercial legal team to support a wide array of commercial transactions, including drafting, reviewing and negotiating commercial agreements, and providing advice across a broad range of subject matters including issues regarding intellectual property, competition law, marketing, and applicable regulatory matters; and
• Serving as primary interface between Microsoft and senior levels of the Government of the MEC countries on policy and legal matters, particularly those involving the use of hyperscale cloud services and new technologies.

The successful candidate will have a law degree and a strong background dealing with diverse cultures. They will ideally have at least 10 years relevant experience combining law, management and public policy experience, ideally in the IT industry. Fluency (written and spoken) in English is required.

Location: Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, or Turkey

People Management

• Managers deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring.
• Model - Live our culture; Embody our values; Practice our leadership principles
• Coach - Define team objectives and outcomes; Enable success across boundaries; Help the team adapt and learn
• Care - Attract and retain great people; Know each individual’s capabilities and aspirations; Invest in the growth of others

Legal Advice and Counsel

• Acts as the primary legal contact (generalist or subject matter expert) for a major product, business group, or corporate function; executes and/or manages high-impact or complex legal matters.
• Serves as a key business partner and valued legal advisor to senior level clients and colleagues by providing actionable advice on a wide range of issues (e.g., IP licensing and business model development); collaborates and advises on strategy to drive meaningful conversations that are grounded in in-depth understanding of product group.
• Identifies and anticipates legal and other risks (e.g., geopolitical, country, reputational, etc.) in client's business, technology, and/or public policy, and develops creative solutions and alternatives to mitigate future risk.
• Manages relationships and develops partnerships with outside counsel; engages clients and collaborates with outside counsel or other service providers to develop strategies and innovative solutions to address business issues and achieve business objectives.
• Drafts new and novel policies and agreements; negotiates a variety of transactional documents (e.g., procurement agreement, joint development deal, settlement agreements, inbound and outbound licensing).
• Reviews, interprets, and analyzes legal information and is recognized as a proven internal thought leader by maintaining a strong understanding of primary legal area and of legal principles outside of primary area; leads the complex analysis of information for value, validity, and accuracy in preparation for presentation of legal matters.
• Ensures business is being conducted in a legally compliant manner and mitigates associated risks; advises and helps clients understand complex compliance issues; facilitates development of creative solutions to complex issues.
• Identifies and engages appropriate stakeholders in Legal and Corporate Affairs and business to escalate issues, drive decisions, and develop decision making frameworks and is considered a key resource by colleagues regarding making sound escalation decisions and engaging appropriately with Legal and Corporate Affairs colleagues.

Representing Microsoft

• Takes an active role in industry or legal associations and external outreach initiatives (e.g., presenting at meetings, conferences, hearings, consultations, conducting workshops, volunteering for committees, leading recruiting activities) to build broader connections; identifies opportunities for employees/team to be engaged.
• Develops and strategizes positive relationships with external and internal legal professionals, academics, government officials, customers, or partners in an effort to protect and advocate Microsoft's interests; develops relationships with external constituencies (including key academics, key government officials, legal professionals, customers or partners) to drive results for supported clients and encourage others to share Microsoft's perspective; coordinates with government affairs professionals to obtain alignment in policy strategy for public entities.

Operational Excellence

• Partners with business teams to develop policies and best practices related to legal and regulatory issues.
• Drives the adoption of and models new tools and processes; takes a leadership role in contributing to significant operational improvements (including timeliness, quality improvement, and cost reduction); ensures team members fully utilize tools and resources to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.
• Develops financial arrangements for outside counsel and vendor expenses; manages and prioritizes expenses to allocated budget; contributes to budget development for practice group; works within and manages budgets for projects.
• Leads and ensures all team members comply with confidentiality, attorney-client privilege, and security procedures.

Communication

• Leads and encourages collaboration with Legal and Corporate Affairs, across internal groups, senior management, senior-level business leaders, and clients to ensure a coordinated Legal and Corporate Affairs voice; provides guidance to frame issues in a clear and concise manner.
• Coaches, manages, and improves decision making by key stakeholders including senior-level business leaders by organizing and simplifying complex/multi-dimensional issues and recommending a clear course of action among alternatives.

Specific Areas of Responsibility

• The CELA Director serves on the Microsoft MEC Leadership Team and acts as a general advisor to the business leadership on all legal and government affairs issues, in many instances addressing novel legal, regulatory and policy questions as the technology business moves into new areas. This person coordinates with other Microsoft regional CELA staff, internal and external subject-matter experts to ensure coverage of all legal and government affairs matters.
• The CELA Director has primary responsibility for ensuring compliance of MEC personnel with all relevant laws and regulations. He or she will also serve on the MEC Compliance Committee and ensure general adherence and the enforcement of Microsoft policies.
• The CELA Director, in partnership with the MEA legal commercial team, supports local commercial transactions ranging from programmatic licensing agreements to unique marketing and digital transformation business arrangements.
• The CELA Director will help coordinate and integrate policy and government relations work with regional and local personnel involved in government outreach, including the Regional Government Affairs lead, the Public Sector and the Public Relations Leads. The CELA Director, with the help and support of regional government affairs professionals, creates ties with government officials as well as with industry and other third-party organizations to support Microsoft’s public policy objectives, particularly those that impact the use of hyperscale cloud services.

Key Experiences

• Significant experience in the legal department of an international company (or similar experience in a law firm).
• Experience managing and implementing corporate compliance initiatives.
• Significant familiarity with relevant legal issues in the technology industry, including intellectual property, data protection, privacy, compliance, antitrust, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and software licensing.
• Experience managing attorneys and/or other professionals.
• Experience handling or managing litigation.A strong understanding of business issues and thinking, preferably in the technology sector.
• Strong analytical, negotiation and drafting skills.
• Experience dealing with diverse cultures and managing and building strong client relationships.
• Excellent team player with the ability to work and communicate with senior management, in a high-pressured business environment, with a flexible, open, collaborative and results-oriented attitude.
• A record of professional growth and success.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Juris Doctorate Degree or Equivalent International Degree
  • OR Completion of a Legal Apprenticeship.
• Active license to practice law in a jurisdiction and capable of meeting admission requirements in relevant jurisdiction.
• 7+ years experience as a practicing attorney
  • OR equivalent practice of law.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• 7-10 years experience as an attorney in specialized practice area (e.g., tax, employment, copyright).
• In-house legal counsel experience
• 1+ years people management experience
• Excellent written and spoken English.

The Successful Candidate Will:

• Have the ability to work proactively and independently while also being capable of working and contributing in a collegial team situation within the subsidiary and across the region.
• Help grow business opportunities through application of public policy and legal support.
• Manage a broad workload across legal and government affairs functions to enable and support Microsoft’s priorities across the region.
• Adapt to a changing environment with creative solutions in support of regional business directions.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.