Head of Legal & Regulatory Affairs

Description

The Head of Legal & Regulatory Affairs is a strategic leadership role responsible for ensuring Okoora’s ability to scale globally with full regulatory readiness. This leader will own the company’s global licensing roadmap, compliance infrastructure, and legal oversight, enabling Okoora to operate seamlessly across multiple jurisdictions. The role is not about paperwork — it is about building regulatory and legal infrastructure that accelerates ARR growth, expands market access, and strengthens trust with banks, partners, and regulators.

Core Responsibilities

• Regulatory & Licensing Leadership
• Lead global licensing efforts (EMI, PI, MSB, and equivalent regimes).
• Build and maintain relationships with regulators in Europe, the US, Israel, and other jurisdictions.
• Anticipate and resolve regulatory requirements to enable rapid market entry.
• Compliance Infrastructure & Oversight
• Oversee the Compliance team.
• Ensure effective execution of KYC/AML checks, sanctions screening, and reporting.
• Establish and enforce policies, controls, and audit-ready compliance systems.
• Due Diligence (Inbound & Outbound)
• Manage inbound due diligence requests from banks, partners, and investors.
• Own outbound due diligence processes for onboarding new clients, partners, and suppliers.
• Build and maintain structured data rooms and documentation repositories.
• Legal & Commercial Oversight
• Supervise negotiation and updates of commercial agreements with clients, partners, and vendors.
• Coordinate with external law firms to execute contracts, handle corporate legal matters, and manage specialized domains.
• Ensure legal terms align with product updates, licensing obligations, and global expansion strategy.
• Leadership & Team Management
• Lead and develop the compliance team.
• Act as the senior authority for all legal and regulatory matters.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to the CEO and executive team on global regulatory strategy.
  
  

• 5+ years of legal/regulatory experience in fintech, payments, or financial institutions.
• Direct experience with licensing frameworks (EMI, PI, MSB, or equivalent).
• Proven leadership of compliance/AML teams, ideally in fast-scaling fintechs.
• Track record of managing external legal counsel and multi-jurisdictional legal processes.
• Experience handling both inbound and outbound due diligence processes.