Chief Legal Data Officer

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Washington / $180000 - $240000 annum

INFO

Salary

SALARY:

$180000 - $240000

Location

LOCATION

Washington

Job Type
JOB TYPE

Permanent

Chief Legal Data Officer

Organization

Our client is a newly public, high-growth technology company operating at the intersection of cybersecurity, secure communications, AI, privacy, and regulated enterprise software. Following recent strategic acquisitions, the organization is building the legal, data governance, compliance, and operational infrastructure required to scale as a public company while maintaining the agility and entrepreneurial pace of a growth-stage business.

Role Title

Chief Legal Data Officer

Compensation

$160,000 - $220,000 base salary, plus equity
Compensation may be flexible depending on experience, seniority, and overall alignment.

Work Style

Remote / Hybrid flexibility
Preference for candidates based in or able to travel periodically to major U.S. business hubs as needed.

Reporting To

Chief Executive Officer and/or General Counsel, depending on final organizational structure.

Experience

5-10+ years of legal, data governance, privacy, technology transactions, compliance, or legal operations experience. JD strongly preferred. Bar admission preferred.

Role Overview

The Chief Legal Data Officer will operate as a strategic legal, data governance, and business partner to executive leadership during a pivotal phase of company growth. This individual will help build scalable legal infrastructure while advising on commercial contracting, data governance, cybersecurity, AI, public-company operations, acquisition integration, privacy, compliance, and enterprise risk.

This is not a narrowly defined legal role. The ideal candidate will be entrepreneurial, commercially minded, comfortable with ambiguity, and excited to help shape the legal and data governance function from the ground up.

Key Responsibilities

  • Draft, review, and negotiate commercial agreements, including SaaS, technology, licensing, vendor, procurement, customer, reseller, partnership, and services agreements.
  • Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Security, Finance, Procurement, HR, Business Development, and executive leadership.
  • Build and maintain scalable legal processes, contract templates, playbooks, workflows, approval matrices, and legal operations infrastructure.
  • Advise on data governance, data usage, privacy, cybersecurity, AI governance, vendor risk, and emerging technology risk.
  • Support public-company governance, corporate policies, board materials, disclosure-adjacent work, compliance initiatives, and enterprise risk management.
  • Support M&A diligence, transaction execution, post-acquisition integration, and harmonization of legal, data, and compliance processes across acquired entities.
  • Advise on government contracts and regulated customer environments, including public-sector procurement and related compliance obligations.
  • Develop practical, business-oriented guidance that enables the company to move quickly while managing legal and regulatory risk appropriately.
  • Evaluate and implement AI-enabled legal tools, CLM systems, workflow automation, and knowledge management processes.
  • Help establish a data governance framework spanning internal systems, customer data, vendor data, AI-enabled workflows, and security-sensitive environments.

Must-Haves

  • Strong commercial contracting experience, ideally with SaaS, software, cloud, cybersecurity, AI, data, or enterprise technology agreements.
  • Ability to operate as a broad in-house legal generalist rather than a narrow specialist.
  • Experience partnering directly with executive leadership and cross-functional business teams.
  • Strong understanding of data privacy, data governance, cybersecurity, vendor risk, or AI governance.
  • Commercial judgment and ability to balance risk mitigation with business enablement.
  • Experience building legal infrastructure, templates, playbooks, workflows, or scalable contracting processes.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
  • Comfort operating in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial, high-growth environment.

Nice-to-Haves

  • Experience with public companies, corporate governance, SEC-adjacent matters, or board-facing work.
  • Government contracting experience, including FAR/DFARS, SLED, federal procurement, or regulated public-sector customers.
  • Exposure to cybersecurity, secure communications, defense technology, AI, cloud infrastructure, or privacy-focused businesses.
  • M&A support, due diligence, or post-acquisition integration experience.
  • Experience implementing CLM tools, AI-enabled legal workflows, or legal operations systems.
  • Privacy, data protection, cybersecurity, AI governance, or compliance certifications.
  • Prior experience in a lean legal function where the candidate helped build process and infrastructure from scratch.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is a commercially minded legal and data governance leader who enjoys building. They should be comfortable wearing multiple hats, advising senior executives, negotiating commercial agreements, thinking strategically about AI and data risk, and creating operational systems that help the company scale.

They will likely come from a high-growth technology, SaaS, cybersecurity, AI, cloud, defense, legal tech, healthtech, fintech, consulting, or government-adjacent environment and will be energized by the opportunity to help shape the legal function during a major growth phase.

Why This Opportunity Is Compelling

This is a rare opportunity to join a newly public technology company at a major inflection point. The organization is expanding through acquisition, investing in AI and cybersecurity, and building the infrastructure needed to support long-term enterprise value creation.

For the right candidate, this role offers meaningful executive visibility, broad ownership, equity participation, and the opportunity to become a foundational legal and data governance leader as the company scales.

CONTACT

Tim Greenwald

Senior Recruitment Consultant

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