UK’s Raspberry Pi Looking For General Counsel

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is looking to appoint our first in-house General Counsel. This is a rare opportunity to join one of the UK’s most innovative and fastest growing charities.

General Counsel

Cambridge, England, United Kingdom

Description

Salary: Competitive salary commensurate with experience
Based: Cambridge
Contract: Permanent or secondment
Hours: Full-time, part-time, or flexible
Eligibility: You must be eligible to work in the UK

The role

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is looking to appoint our first in-house General Counsel. This is a rare opportunity to join one of the UK’s most innovative and fastest growing charities.

Our mission is to put the power of digital making into the hands of people all over the world. Since launching our first product in February 2012, we have sold over 14 million Raspberry Pi computers and helped kickstart a global movement to get more people involved in computing and digital making. We’ve trained thousands of teachers and engaged hundreds of thousands of young people in our educational programmes, including through our network of over 11,000 Code Clubs and CoderDojos all over the world. Our free educational resources are used by millions of people every year.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is not a traditional charity and this is not a traditional General Counsel role. You will provide legal support across all of our charitable and commercial activities, working closely with all parts of the group, including our wholly-owned trading subsidiary.

While our headquarters are based in Cambridge in the UK, we are a global business, with legal entities and offices in San Francisco and Dublin, and products and programmes that are in demand all over the world.

The Foundation has benefited from pro bono legal support since its inception and we continue to receive high quality pro bono legal support from some of the world’s best law firms in the UK, US, and Ireland. We’ve now reached the size and complexity to need a qualified and experienced lawyer in-house.

The role will be varied, covering all aspects of legal and corporate governance support. The ideal candidate will have six years’ post-qualification experience as a solicitor. Whether your experience is in the commercial or charitable sector is less important than your attitude and mindset. You will need to be comfortable working in a fast-paced environment, able to switch contexts quickly, and open to learning what you don’t know.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a unique place to work, with a fantastic team and positive work culture. If you think that you might be the person we’re looking for, we’d love to hear from you.

Main responsibilities

  • Provide legal advice and support to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and its group companies on a wide variety of areas of law including charity, contract, employment, IP, and data protection.
  • Drafting, negotiating and managing a wide range of commercial contracts, including services contracts, supplier and licence agreements, grant agreements, partnership agreements, sponsorship contracts, leases, and other commercial contracts.
  • Manage all aspects of IP and trademark protection and enforcements.
  • Act as Company Secretary and manage all aspects of corporate and charitable governance and reporting in all jurisdictions in which the Raspberry Pi Foundation and group companies operate.
  • Work with colleagues across the Foundation and group companies to proactively identify areas of legal risk and take actions to mitigate those risks effectively.
  • Act as client for all external legal advice and proactively managing relationships with our pro bono legal partners.
  • Develop templates, processes, guidance, and training that supports business managers to do low risk legal work effectively.
  • Lead on all aspects of data protection compliance in all jurisdictions in which we operate, including overseeing data security requirements and liaising with regulatory bodies as required.

Experience and personal attributes

You must have:

  • Six years’ experience as a qualified solicitor (or equivalent outside the UK) and a solid working knowledge of the UK legal system.
  • Significant experience at contract negotiation and drafting.
  • Experience of working with external legal advisers, able to act as an effective client.
  • Flexibility and a willingness to learn.
  • A commercial approach to risk, able to balance legal risk against practical constraints and commercial goals.
  • Effective organisational skills, able to work independently and efficiently, balancing different priorities.

You’ll ideally also have some experience of:

  • Working in a charity with a significant trading company.
  • Supporting a group of companies that works across different legal jurisdictions.
  • Protecting commercial IP and trademarks.

Benefits

In addition to competitive salaries, we offer additional benefits for all of our colleagues, including:

? 25 days’ leave, plus public holidays.
? Flexible working arrangements.
? Good support for working parents, including family leave policy.
? Pension with 8% employer and 4% employee contributions.
? Life assurance and long-term illness insurance.
? Cycle to work, season ticket loan, and childcare voucher schemes.

Timetable for applications
Closing date: 9am Mon 21st Aug 2017
Phone Interviews: 24th & 25th Aug 2017
Initial interviews: Thurs 31st Aug 2017
Second interviews: Tues 5th Sep 2017
*If you’re not available on the above dates, please still apply and let us know in your cover letter. Alternative arrangements can be made for the right candidate.