Senior Legal Counsel EMEA, (Commercial)

Are you ready to power the World's connections? If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box - we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others. Location : London or Paris Some limited international work travel will be required. ABOUT THE ROLE: We are looking for an experienced commercial and generalist lawyer to join Kong’s global commercial legal team, responsible for helping support Kong’s sales growth. In this role, you will be a trusted partner to the EMEA revenue teams. You will also have the opportunity to provide support to our APAC and AMER sales teams as the needs arise. This is a unique opportunity to play a central position as a trusted advisor in EMEA’s GTM successes as we grow and scale. You will draft, structure and negotiate customer contracts with some of the world’s biggest brands in financial services, technology, retail and other industries. You will be called on to assess legal and business risks, make sound decisions, and provide advice on a broad range of issues in areas such as SaaS, AI, privacy, security, alliances, open-source software and intellectual property, and assist with other issues as they come up. You will also partner with the wider Kong Legal team to address other corporate, compliance and other legal issues, and help develop scalable, global systems, processes and automations. You will report to Kong’s Senior Director, Global Commercial, based in London, UK. What you will be doing: - Serve as a trusted advisor and business partner to all levels of Kong’s EMEA sales team, from VP to Account Executive - Support our AMER and APAC sales team as needed - Lead complex cross-border commercial transactions with sophisticated counterparties located across EMEA - Review, draft, and negotiate a wide variety of other commercial agreements - Help ensure compliance with a variety of laws and regulations impacting our enterprise software and SaaS offerings, including intellectual property, privacy, security, compliance and government contracting - Partner with Finance, Sales Ops and Deal Ops to support the end-to-end contract negotiation and close process - Advise internal teams on legal matters and provide general commercial legal advice, as well as providing training and enablement to our growing Go to Market organization - Assist in building out AI tools and processes to assist with our growth and scale - And any additional challenges and tasks to help support Kong’s growth WHAT YOU’LL BRING: - Law degree, and member in good standing in England and Wales (or if France, CAPA and registration with local bar association) - Experience with UK or US headquartered companies, and strong English technical drafting skills - Minimum 4-6 years of experience practicing law both with a law firm and in-house (preferably with late-stage private and/or early-stage public technology companies) - Demonstrated experience in negotiating and closing complex software and SaaS contracts with large, sophisticated customers - Great judgment and bedside manner with customers, and an ability to build and maintain strong professional relationships within the company, with customers, and others - Working knowledge of intellectual property, AI, data governance, EMEA regulation and privacy matters - High professional and personal standards, and a commitment to inclusiveness - Attention to detail and an ability to view legal issues within the context of business objectives - A passion for team work, collaboration and customer success - at Kong we win together #LI-KH1 About Kong: Kong Inc., a leading developer of API and AI connectivity technologies, is building the infrastructure that powers the agentic era. Trusted by the Fortune 500 and startups alike, Kong's unified API and AI platform, Kong Konnect, enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI models. For more information, visit www.konghq.com http://www.konghq.com.