Founding Fintech Legal & Regulatory Lead

FOUNDING FINTECH LEGAL & REGULATORY LEAD ABOUT GRAND Grand is the first purpose-built fintech for the B2B economy. We’ve raised over $5m to build the most intelligent fintech platform for businesses that operate in the built world. Our first product, Grand Profile, helps businesses understand whom they extend credit to, payment terms, unsecured loans, etc. – surfacing early signals of risk and growth so they can act sooner. Over time, this trust network becomes the foundation for an intelligent payment network where businesses can extend credit, move money, and transact with confidence. Grand is founded and funded by a group of entrepreneurs, investors and researchers who’ve built, sold, worked in, and invested in global fintech, commerce, and AI companies, including Mastercard Labs, Stripe, Shopify, Airwallex, American Express, WhenThen, Loveable, and others. THE ROLE We’re hiring a Founding Fintech Legal & Regulatory Lead to help define and drive the legal and regulatory infrastructure at the core of Grand. This is a high-impact individual contributor role with real ownership. You’ll work AI-first by default, using modern AI tooling to accelerate legal analysis, licensing workflows, regulatory interpretation, submissions, and internal decision-making without sacrificing judgment. The goal is to help Grand navigate complex regulatory environments across the UK, EU, and beyond — enabling the company to launch products, secure licenses, enter markets, and scale responsibly. This is not a pure compliance role and not a policy-maintenance role. You’ll be driving licensing, legal structuring, regulatory engagement, scheme onboarding, and supervisory strategy in production, influencing how Grand operates as a modern fintech institution. Judgment matters as much as legal knowledge. Knowing where to push, where to simplify, and where regulatory flexibility actually exists is part of the job. You’ll sit close to the founders, product, operations, and external legal partners, shaping how Grand engages regulators, schemes, banking partners, and supervisory bodies. This is a seat at the founders’ table, helping define how Grand scales responsibly in a regulated, built-world market. Your mission will be to build a repeatable regulatory and legal execution function across licensing, jurisdictional expansion, and regulated product infrastructure. That’s the wedge. Everything else — governance expansion, policy layering, operational scale-out — comes after, and only when the regulatory foundations underneath it work. We’d rather have one licensing pathway that compounds than five fragmented initiatives that create drag. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Own and execute Grand’s legal and regulatory strategy across the UK, EU, and future markets - Lead relationships with regulators, supervisory bodies, schemes, banking partners, and external legal counsel - Drive licensing applications, registrations, agent structures, scheme onboarding, and supervisory engagement end-to-end - Work directly with external counsel to shape regulatory submissions, legal structures, product reviews, and supervisory responses - Translate legal and regulatory constraints into clear operational, product, and technical direction - Ensure regulatory and legal guidance is commercially practical, proportionate, and aligned with how the product actually works - Partner closely with product and engineering so regulation is embedded into workflows, not bolted on - Anticipate regulatory change and supervisory risk before it becomes operational drag - Define and maintain Grand’s regulatory roadmap, including jurisdictional expansion and licensing strategy - Build AI-assisted workflows for regulatory tracking, approvals, documentation, horizon scanning, and internal coordination - Support commercial, partnership, and infrastructure negotiations where legal or regulatory complexity exists - Move fast without being reckless, understanding where precision and defensibility matter most WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE IN 12 MONTHS - Major licensing, registration, or regulatory approval milestones progressed materially forward - Clear regulatory pathways established across Grand’s priority jurisdictions - Strong working relationships established with regulators, schemes, banking partners, and external counsel - Legal and regulatory decision-making is embedded cleanly into product and operational workflows - AI-assisted regulatory and legal workflows are materially improving execution speed and clarity - Grand’s regulatory credibility strengthened across partners, regulators, and the broader market - Regulatory infrastructure built to scale beyond a single operator MUST HAVE - Law degree or equivalent legal qualification (LLB, LLM, JD, or similar) - Proven experience working directly with fintech regulation, payments regulation, or financial services law in the UK and/or EU - Hands-on experience supporting licensing applications, regulatory approvals, supervisory engagement, or regulated product launches - Strong understanding of how legal structure, regulation, operations, and product design intersect inside fintech businesses - Comfort operating as a senior IC with real ownership and accountability - Ability to turn legal and regulatory ambiguity into clear, pragmatic direction - Confident working alongside law firms without outsourcing judgment or decision-making - Practical, daily use of LLMs and modern AI tooling in legal or regulatory work — as leverage, not novelty - Experience designing or operating regulatory workflows supported by automation and AI - Clear communicator who can explain complex legal and regulatory constraints plainly - Bias toward progress, resolution, and commercial practicality - High integrity, sound judgment, and calm under pressure NICE TO HAVE - Experience with EMI licensing, agent structures, BIN sponsorship, safeguarding, or scheme onboarding - Experience inside a fintech infrastructure, payments, or regulated B2B platform business - Exposure to cross-border regulatory structuring and jurisdictional expansion - Background spanning legal, regulatory, product, or operational functions - Time spent inside a specialist fintech law firm, regulator, or supervisory authority - Familiarity with scheme rules, banking partnerships, or embedded finance structures WHAT ‘FOUNDING’ MEANS AT GRAND Founding isn’t a title. It’s how you work. 1. Every decision you make contributes directly and visibly to the company’s trajectory 2. You can tell the difference between a reversible decision and an irreversible one, and you act accordingly 3. You move with urgency, but never with panic. Pace and discipline are not in tension 4. You operate with judgment. You don’t wait to be told, and you don’t hide behind permission 5. Bias for action is the default. You don’t need the phrase on a poster 6. You measure yourself by outcomes, not hours. The work is the point 7. You own results, including the ones that don’t go your way. No excuses, no theatre 8. You’re always thinking about the next structure, the next pathway, the next improvement, even when you’re not at the desk 9. You want what you build to matter at scale — to help shape how a real industry operates, not to live in a memo 10. You hold a high opinion of your work and a higher one of your standards, and you’d rather let the output speak WHY THIS ROLE / BENEFITS - One of the earliest non-founder operators, with direct influence over Grand’s legal and regulatory direction - Meaningful equity ownership in a long-term company going after a large, underserved market - A real shot at helping shape the foundations of a modern fintech institution - Strong compensation: competitive and reflective of the responsibilities of a founding role - Hybrid Work: at least 3 days in our Dublin office - Extended Remote Work on Request: outcomes matter more than optics - Builders, Not Tourists: work with people who care deeply about getting things right WHO YOU ARE You’re a builder with strong legal and regulatory instincts. You’re interested in how financial institutions actually operate, not just how regulation reads on paper. You think in systems, not isolated legal questions. You understand that regulation shapes product, operations, partnerships, and market expansion — not just compliance outcomes. You’ve seen what breaks when regulation becomes process for its own sake, and you design accordingly. You take responsibility for outcomes, including the difficult tradeoffs. You prioritise credibility, defensibility, and long-term trust over unnecessary complexity or theatre. You value correctness, clarity, and judgment over bureaucracy. You thrive in ambiguity, enjoy difficult problems with no obvious answer, and take pride in helping build regulated infrastructure that earns its place. You’re based in Dublin, Ireland or in close commuting distance (or ready to be), and ready to help build something genuinely new. If this sounds like you, let’s talk.