Group Legal Director - Employment, Incentives and Pensions

🚀 We’re on a mission to make money work for everyone.

We’re waving goodbye to the complicated and confusing ways of traditional banking.

After starting as a prepaid card, our product offering has grown a lot in the last 10 years in the UK. As well as personal and business bank accounts, we offer joint accounts, accounts for 16-17 year olds, a free kids account and credit cards in the UK, with more exciting things to come beyond. Our UK customers can also save, invest and combine their pensions with us. 

With our hot coral cards and get-paid-early feature, combined with financial education on social media and our award winning customer service, we have a long history of creating magical moments for our customers!

We’re not about selling products - we want to solve problems and change lives through Monzo ❤️

📍 London/Cardiff/UK Remote | 💰c.£190,000-£210,000 + Incentive Awards tied to your performance + Benefits | Hear from the team 

⭐ Our Legal team and you

We're looking for a Group Legal Director of Employment, Incentives & Pensions at Monzo. This role will have day-to-day responsibility for managing all legal matters associated with Monzo's employment, incentives and pensions (‘EIP’) matters in the UK and Europe.  Reporting to Monzo's General Counsel for Group Centre and often working directly with Monzo’s Chief Legal & Administrative Officer, you will operate as the most senior legal leader for people, reward and workforce strategy globally. You will be at the intersection of people strategy, regulation, governance and technology, with direct impact on Monzo’s long-term success and operating model.

You will work at Executive level in the organisation in close partnership with our Group Chief People Officer, our People team, Monzo's VP of Reward and our Chair of the Remuneration Committee.  You’ll lead on a wide range of EIP related legal matters within a bank regulatory compensation framework (including but not limited to CRD V and SMCR). You’ll have a solid grounding in all types of incentive structures including but not limited to share options. This role will be a part of the leadership team for the Legal & Board Governance Collective.

🔑 You’ll play a key role by…

• Providing strategic legal advice and commercial solutions on EIP matters impacting the Monzo Group as a whole, as well as its subsidiary legal entities (in the UK and EU).
• Being a trusted adviser and partner to the Group Chief People Officer, the Executive leadership and People team, including in developing policies, procedures, guidance, and templates relevant for a range of EIP legal matters.
• Working with Monzo’s VP of Reward, the Reward team and our Chair of the Remuneration Committee on compensation arrangements and remuneration policies and practices with a sound understanding of different reward and compensation structures including share options.
• Managing a team of two senior employment lawyers and helping to mentor and support other lawyers across the wider team.
• Providing EIP advisory legal support to the business as required across the entire employee life cycle—from hiring (including executive service contracts), people processes, and departures, and managing any contentious EIP legal matters.
• Supporting international EIP projects and matters in the EU and other jurisdictions as the business continues to scale, coordinating with in-country General Counsels and their teams.
• Working proactively and collaboratively with members of the wider Legal, People, Reward, Tax, Risk & Compliance, & Finance Collectives on a variety of EIP related matters, ensuring coordination across control functions and business teams.
• Developing and implementing internal frameworks, processes, and procedures to increase the efficiency and scalability of EIP legal advice across the Monzo Group and its subsidiary entities, including empowering the people and business teams with appropriate guidance and tools.
• Delivering training, sharing insights from your work, and helping educate others on EIP matters, providing forward-looking guidance on key legal and regulatory developments, risks, and opportunities.
• Managing relationships with our external legal counsel and working with others in the Collective to ensure we are optimising our legal spend on EIP matters and obtaining best value.
• Supporting the broader Legal & Board Governance Collective in continuing to build a world-class and scalable, high-performing legal team, including championing technology innovations to streamline workflows and increase scalability (and yes, you get to work with us in developing our Generative AI based solutions!)
  
  

🤩 We’d love to hear from you if…

• You have significant post-qualification experience in the field of employment law, and preferably also incentives and defined contribution pensions related matters (c.15 Yrs PQE+ as a guide, but not a prerequisite) 
• You have outstanding technical skills and strong knowledge of employment law, and preferably also incentives and pensions matters having spent time in private practice and ideally time in house.  If you have spent time at a bank and/or financial technology company managing EIP matters that is a plus. 
• You are a strategic thinker, a strong communicator and a keen problem solver who knows how to assess risk and recommend solutions that balance business and risk perspectives 
• You are happy handling the widest range of legal issues that may arise even where outside your core areas of expertise, and can sensibly assess when best to engage external counsel in a cost effective way 
• You are comfortable operating at all levels of the organisation up to the Executive and Remuneration Committee, but can also roll your sleeves up and get things done
• You're passionate about the intersection of banking and technology and the transformation unfolding in consumer finance and the future world of work practices, and what we are doing here at Monzo excites you! 

Not ticking every box? That’s totally okay! Studies show that women and people of colour might hesitate to apply unless they meet every single requirement. At Monzo, we’re dedicated to creating an inclusive and welcoming team. If you’re passionate about this role and keen to learn and grow with us, we encourage you to apply - even if you don’t have everything that's listed just yet. Drop us your application, we’d love to hear from you! In-house experience in financial services is preferred, but is not essential for the right candidate. 

🌈 The application journey has 3 key steps

• Recruiter call
• Initial call 
• Full loop: Technical, Behavioural & Leadership interviews 

Our average process takes around 3-4 weeks but we will always work around your availability. You will have the chance to speak to our recruitment team at various points during your process but if you do have any specific questions ahead of this please contact us on *business-hiring@monzo.com*

🙌 What’s in it for you

💰circa £190,000-£210,000 salary range + Incentive Awards tied to your performance + Benefits

⏰ We offer flexible working hours and trust you to work enough hours to do your job well, at times that suit you and your team.

📚 Learning budget of £1,000 a year for books, training courses and conferences

➕ And much more, see our full list of benefits here

#LI-DH1 #LI-REMOTE

Equal opportunities for everyone

Diversity and inclusion are a priority for us and we’re making sure we have lots of support for all of our people to grow at Monzo. At Monzo, we’re embracing diversity by fostering an inclusive environment for all people to do the best work of their lives with us. This is integral to our mission of making money work for everyone. You can read more in our blog, 2024 Diversity and Inclusion Report and 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report.

We’re an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, or veteran, neurodiversity or disability status.

If you have a preferred name, please use it to apply. We don't need full or birth names at application stage 😊