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Job Description

Zendesk is seeking a Director to lead its outstanding AMER Enterprise Commercial Legal team, which is the team focused on Zendesk's largest and most strategic customers. This person will also manage strategy, direction, and vision for the Commercial Legal team's Enterprise practice in North America. This is a highly visible role partnering closely with Zendesk’s senior AMER Enterprise Sales leadership team and will be a key leader in the global Commercial Legal organization. The Director will also personally manage strategic customer or partner negotiations as a player-coach for the team as needed, leveraging deep subject matter expertise in commercial and tech transactions.  

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the Commercial Legal team for AMER Enterprise (a team of about 5), manage its daily operations, and provide strategy, direction, and vision for its growth, improvement, and continued success

• Develop a close working relationship with the company’s other senior AMER leaders in Sales, Finance, Security and other organizations to ensure strong alignment and partnership with Legal

• Have an ownership mentality and be the face of AMER Enterprise Commercial Legal, embracing responsibility for all aspects of its performance and success

• Provide practical and business-minded legal advice to business stakeholders on a variety of legal topics

• Manage the recruiting process for new Commercial Legal team members to support AMER Enterprise

• Provide training, oversight and management of the Commercial Legal team to ensure compliance with company policies

• Identify and implement scaling, efficiency and process improvements for the Commercial Legal team’s daily legal activities on revenue-generating agreements and other key transactions

• Provide legal training to the AMER Sales, Finance, Security, GTM and other teams

• Contribute to collaboration and knowledge-sharing across the global Commercial Legal team

• Manage various other projects to improve the Commercial Legal practice

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of substantive commercial legal experience, preferably in-house at a SaaS technology company

• 2+ years of experience managing lawyers, ideally in a remote and geographically dispersed setting

• Licensed to practice law in a U.S. jurisdiction. 

• Excellent leadership, mentorship, and motivational talents, with a strong sense of integrity and ethics

• Strong track record of performance in demanding, high-growth environments

• Executive presence and the ability to collaborate closely and confidently with senior business leaders

• Experience with SaaS tech transactions and AMER commercial regulations that apply to SaaS companies, including privacy and data protection laws, regulations and standards

• Expertise in drafting and negotiating a wide variety of commercial and tech transactions typical to the SaaS technology sectors, such as Subscription Agreements, Services Agreements, Data Processing Agreements and technology partnership agreements

• Ability to provide clear, concise and actionable guidance on complicated legal questions to non-Legal stakeholders

• High degree of tech savvy, with the ability to complete projects quickly, independently, and with minimal supervision (though you’ll always have the support you need)

• Strong organizational, project management, and execution skills with a collaborative and flexible approach when partnering with others

• Strong experience in developing, implementing, and using legal department technology 

• Excellent analytical and problem-solving capabilities, sometimes in the face of unknowns

• Impressive oral, written and interpersonal communication skills 

• Ability manage and prioritize competing priorities in a fast-paced and high-volume environment without sacrificing quality, attention to detail, accuracy or timeliness 

• A high energy level and positive demeanor when communicating with busy internal clients, teammates, and partners outside our team

About Zendesk - Champions of Customer Service
Zendesk started the customer experience revolution in 2007 by enabling any business around the world to take their customer service online. Today, Zendesk is the champion of great service everywhere for everyone, and powers billions of conversations, connecting more than 100,000 logos with hundreds of millions of customers over telephony, chat, email, messaging, social channels, communities, review sites and help centers. Zendesk products are built with love to be loved. The company was conceived in Copenhagen, Denmark, built and grown in California, taken public in New York City, and today employs more than 4,000 people across the world. Learn more at www.zendesk.com.

We believe in service. Learn more about how we provide support to our local communities with volunteering, grants and product donations. 

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here. 

U.S. Applicants Only:  Consistent with Zendesk’s emphasis on employee wellness and our shared interest in public health, Zendesk requires all U.S. employees to provide proof of full vaccination against COVID-19.  Zendesk will consider accommodations for reasons recognized by applicable law. Zendesk prohibits discrimination and will not tolerate discrimination based on a person’s disability, physical or mental conditions, religion, or any other status protected by law.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to benefits@zendesk.com with your specific accommodation request.

By submitting your application, you agree that Zendesk may collect your personal data for recruiting, global organization planning, and related purposes. Zendesk's Candidate Privacy Notice explains what personal information Zendesk may process, where Zendesk may process your personal information, its purposes for processing your personal information, and the rights you can exercise over Zendesk’s use of your personal information.