Head of Legal – APAC

Role Overview

• Lead legal support for Sokin’s activities across the APAC region, ensuring alignment with business priorities and applicable local legal and regulatory requirements.
• Act as a trusted legal advisor to regional leadership on a broad range of matters, including commercial contracts, product and distribution arrangements, regulatory developments, data protection/privacy, intellectual property, disputes, and corporate governance.
• Partner closely with Compliance, Risk, Product and Commercial teams to support regional launches, new initiatives and ongoing operations.
• Provide practical, commercially focused legal guidance that enables growth while protecting the organisation’s interests.
• Manage relationships with external counsel across APAC jurisdictions, ensuring timely, high-quality and cost-effective legal support.
• Support Sokin’s legal strategy in relation to licensing and regulated activities across the APAC, working closely with Compliance and business leadership.
• Lead or support the legal workstream for licensing applications, regulatory approvals, renewals, ongoing reporting obligations, and change management processes, with oversight of internal stakeholders and external counsel where required.
• Advise on legal and regulatory considerations connected with market entry, business expansions, new products and operational change.
• Support responses to regulatory queries, supervisory engagement, audits and reviews, ensuring legal input is coordinated and clearly documented.
• Help shape and maintain governance frameworks, policies, legal documentation and controls that support regulatory obligations and sound risk management.
• Draft, review and negotiate a broad range of commercial agreements, including customer terms, supplier contracts, partnership agreements, referral arrangements, technology contracts and other strategic commercial documentation.
• Support commercial and operational teams on day-to-day legal matters arising from customer relationships, third-party arrangements and regional business activity.
• Provide legal support for strategic partnerships, distribution arrangements, outsourcing and vendor onboarding.
• Help drive standardisation of contract terms and legal approaches where appropriate to support efficiency and scalability.
• Establish and evolve a fit-for-purpose legal operating model for the APAC region, including templates, playbooks, approval processes, governance materials and training for internal teams.
• Contribute to the development of a scalable legal framework that supports both current operations and future regional growth.
• Help assess resource needs and contribute to building a high-performing regional legal capability, whether in-house or through a managed external counsel model.

Requirements

• Qualified lawyer with strong post-qualification experience, ideally gained in-house and with relevant exposure to fintech, payments, financial services, or another regulated environment.
• Significant experience advising on regulatory and licensing matters in one or more APAC markets, ideally within payments, fintech or broader financial services.
• Strong experience providing general commercial legal support in a fast-paced business, including drafting and negotiating a wide range of commercial agreements.
• Experience partnering closely with Compliance and Risk teams and supporting engagement with regulators, external counsel and internal stakeholders.
• Strong understanding of legal issues relevant to regulated financial services businesses in the APAC region.
• Proven ability to simplify complex legal issues and provide pragmatic, business-oriented advice to senior stakeholders.
• Experience building or improving legal processes, templates, playbooks and governance structures in a scaling business.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to operate effectively across multiple jurisdictions and functions.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Flexible working arrangements
• Professional development opportunities