Executive Director, Assistant General Counsel - Strategy and Corporate Development Legal

Join the Strategy and Corporate Development Legal Team to help bring household-name partnerships to life across Consumer & Community Banking, Asset & Wealth Management, and the Private Bank. You’ll lead drafting and negotiation of complex strategic agreements—from payment network and co-branded credit card partnerships to credit card benefits, marketing arrangements, and digital integrations. Working side-by-side with senior business leaders and cross-functional teams, you’ll deliver clear, commercially pragmatic advice at pace and from the earliest stages of deal strategy. This role offers meaningful visibility, broad collaboration across the Legal department, and the opportunity to shape new customer benefits and go-to-market relationships.

As the Head of Co-Brand Card & Networks Legal within the Strategic Transactions Legal team, you will lead the team providing legal counsel on a variety of strategic deals across the bank’s Community and Consumer Banking businesses. You will manage a high-performing team of transactional attorneys, drafting and negotiating agreements (such as co-brand card partnerships, card benefits and marketing arrangements, digital integrations, and other types of broad-based strategic partnership agreements). In addition, you will draft and negotiate agreements, such as network agreements, co-brand card partnerships, card benefits and marketing arrangements, digital integrations and other types of broad-based strategic partnership agreements with household names. You will have the opportunity for significant cross-functional and cross-legal department collaboration and require the delivery of timely, clear, and pragmatic legal advice to the business. This position also provides an excellent opportunity for a candidate to build an exciting career in a leading global financial services firm and to play a key part in building and bringing to market new benefits and partnerships. 

Job responsibilities:

• Lead the cobranded credit cards and payment networks team, fostering a high-performance culture.
• Manage a team of high-performing and experienced transactional attorneys supporting enterprise-critical workstreams; allocate resources, manage workload/surge coverage, and partner closely with senior leaders across CCB, Corporate Development, Product, Risk, Compliance, and Finance.
• Draft and negotiate agreements for key CCB strategic partnerships and engagements including partnership agreements, embedded benefits agreements, co-brand credit card agreements and issuer agreements with payment networks.
• Provide strategic, commercially pragmatic, and transparent advice to business partners.
• Provide ongoing support and assistance to business partners, other legal teams and functional partners as to contract interpretation.
• Provide early stage “seat at the table” strategy and pre-term sheet legal support, including issue-spotting, researching, and appropriately escalating risks and concerns that may exist with any potential deal type.
• Participate in cross line of business initiatives.
• Manage external counsel as required.

Required Qualifications, Capabilities and Skills:

• Licensed attorney with at least 10 years of legal experience
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams and manage stakeholders effectively, especially during periods of fast-paced deal activity
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Prior experience advising banking and or fintech organizations with regard to consumer and small business products and services
• On-point transactional experience with strong negotiation and technical drafting skills
• Ability to work autonomously while being a collegial team player who brings a positive, “can-do” attitude to the workplace and works collaboratively with other members of the Legal team and with internal clients
• Entrepreneurial, business-minded, and a creative problem solver
• The ability to see past the question, understand the wider strategy, and think tactically to get to the best result for all parties
• The ability to pivot between priorities and have the perseverance and patience to see a matter through to completion
• All candidates for roles in the Legal department must successfully complete a conflicts of interest clearance review prior to commencement of employment