General Counsel

We are hiring a General Counsel , reporting to the Chief Operating Officer (COO). This role leads Canonical's global Legal and Compliance function. This is a unique opportunity for an exceptional and commercially-minded senior lawyer to lead the legal and compliance function of a profitable, fast-growing technology company that is privately held with the intention to list on a public exchange. We're looking for someone with genuine fluency in the software industry and in open source dynamics, who can translate that insight into clear positions on licensing, commercial contracts and risk, and hands-on execution.
Reporting directly to the Chief Operating Officer, you will own Canonical's legal, regulatory and governance posture and lead a distributed team across EMEA and the Americas. Your primary challenge will be to continue building both the team and the architecture: a management layer across two regions, and the governance, contracting and controls a public company needs, in an environment that regularly does things the industry has not done before. We are looking for someone with a strong academic background, an active licence to practice, and demonstrable exposure to a multilayered global operational environment.
Location: This role will be based remotely in EMEA time zones.
Leading the global Legal and Compliance function: setting it's structure, standards and priorities across EMEA and the Americas.
Building and managing a management capability: hire and develop managers, set objectives, review performance against a clear bar, and address under-performance directly.
Setting the operating cadence of the function: intake and prioritization of legal work, service expectations with internal clients, and reporting on workload and risk to the leadership team.
Owning public-market readiness on the legal side: corporate governance, group and entity structure, delegated authority, policies, disclosure controls and records, in partnership with Finance.
Owning the commercial contracting framework: standard templates, negotiating positions, and a deviation and escalation process that makes commitments visible before they are signed.
Leading intellectual property and open source licensing strategy, including copyleft, trademark and the terms on which Ubuntu and our products are distributed.
Owning the global compliance programme: data protection and privacy, export controls and trade compliance, anti-bribery and corruption, competition and AI regulation.
Managing litigation, disputes and regulatory engagement, together with the external counsel panel, its budget and its quality.
A degree in law, or equivalent, and an active licence to practice in an EMEA or Americas jurisdiction.
Substantial senior in-house experience in a global technology or software business.
Proven experience leading a distributed legal team, including managing managers across regions and time zones.
A track record of setting and holding a high performance bar: hiring well, developing people, and dealing with under performance directly rather than waiting it out.
Experience building or restructuring an in-house legal function, including deciding what is retained, delegated and sent to external counsel.
negotiating and owning commercial technology contracts, including enterprise software and subscriptions, channel and reseller agreements, hardware manufacturer agreements, cloud and services
Experience of, or demonstrable readiness for, public company governance: listing preparation, board and committee support, disclosure and controls.
Depth in at least two of: data protection and privacy, IP and trademark, export controls and trade, competition, or disputes.
Professional written and spoken English with excellent drafting and presentation skills.
A technical or engineering background, or fluency in how software is built and shipped.
Experience building or restructuring an in-house legal function.
We consider geographical location, experience, and performance in shaping compensation worldwide. We revisit compensation annually (and more often for graduates and associates) to ensure we recognize outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus or commission. We balance our programs to meet local needs and ensure fairness globally.
~ Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year.
~ Bi-annual compensation review.
~ 40 days annual leave per annum, including public holidays and our All Company holiday periods.
~ Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. Our platform, Ubuntu, is very widely used in breakthrough enterprise initiatives such as public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation, and IoT. Our customers include the world's leading public cloud and silicon providers, and industry leaders in many sectors