Corporate Counsel

The Role

We’re looking for a sharp, commercially minded, and execution-driven Corporate Counsel to join Ziina. In this role, you’ll build the legal function from the ground up, define scalable processes, and work with autonomy while collaborating cross-functionally across other areas. You’ll serve as a strategic advisor across the business—supporting day-to-day operations, complex transactions, growth, and everything in between. You’ll wear multiple hats as our in-house legal expert, balancing risk mitigation with business enablement in a fast-paced environment. This is a unique opportunity to help shape the legal foundation of a scaling company operating at the intersection of finance and technology.

As a Corporate Counsel at Ziina, you will:

• Draft, review, and negotiate a wide range of commercial agreements, including vendor, partner, employment, merchant, and consumer contracts.

• Lead product legal reviews to ensure all product features and offerings comply with applicable laws and deliver a seamless user experience.

• Advise cross-functional teams on legal risks and frameworks to enable fast yet responsible innovation, and collaborate with product teams to integrate legal and regulatory requirements into the product development lifecycle from inception to launch.

• Oversee corporate governance, including maintaining records, preparing board resolutions, and supporting fundraising and expansion.

• Build and implement scalable legal infrastructure using AI, automation and digital tools to streamline contracts, legal workflows, and risk assessments.

• Draft and maintain terms and conditions, privacy notices, and all customer-facing legal documentation for fintech products and services.

• Advise on data privacy requirements and work with technology teams to implement robust data handling practices.

• Support HR with employment law guidance, internal policy design, equity plan implementation, and cross-jurisdictional labor compliance.

• Advise on IP protection, including trademark filings, technology licensing, and contractor IP assignments.

• Manage litigation, dispute resolution, and contentious matters, oversee external counsel, and report case strategy to leadership.

To succeed in this role, you likely:

• Are qualified to practice law and have 6+ years of legal experience, with proven experience working in the fintech sector or at Financial Institution, ideally with a background in payments-related matters.

• Demonstrate deep knowledge of the legal and regulatory environment governing payments and fintech services.

• Have a strong command of commercial contract negotiation, corporate governance, and regulatory frameworks across the GCC or international fintech markets.

• Bring a commercial mindset, understanding product development and business strategy to enable compliant growth and innovative product launches in a fast-scaling environment.

• Are confident advising on a variety of legal domains, including employment, privacy, intellectual property, and product-related risk.

• Can manage competing priorities independently, delivering pragmatic, business-aligned legal solutions under tight timelines.

• Have excellent communication skills and the ability to explain legal concepts clearly to non-lawyers.

• Are organized, detail-oriented, and adept at balancing risk while enabling innovation.

• Thrive in a dynamic, fast-growing company where no two days look the same.

What would amaze us:

• You’ve supported a Series A–C company through international expansion or a complex fundraising transaction.

• You’ve helped build internal legal systems, workflows, or contract lifecycle processes from scratch.

• You’ve provided hands-on legal support for product launches or user-facing platform features.

• You’ve navigated legal questions across jurisdictions, including labor, tax, or commercial law in the UAE, and have strong domain knowledge of UAE legal frameworks (e.g., commercial, corporate, private, labor, and tax law).

• You are fluent in Arabic as well as English.

About Ziina

Ziina’s mission is to bring financial freedom to every person in the Middle East. We are building MENA’s consumer and SMB financial platform, starting with a peer-to-peer and merchant wallet. Our team have backgrounds from Apple, Uber, Stripe, Klarna, Revolut, Yandex, and Nubank. Ziina’s payments volumes have grown by 10x YoY for the last two years. The team have built a product that is beloved by the UAE and is the recipient of 8 international design awards, including the Red Dot Award and the UX Design Award. Our last round was a $22 million Series A from top-tier investors globally including Altos Ventures, Fintech Collective, Activant, Long Journey Ventures and Y Combinator. Our angel investors include early employees and executives at Revolut, Stripe, Venmo, Brex, Checkout.com, Notion, and Deel.

Join us in shaping the future of financial freedom. Every role here is an opportunity to make a real impact. Let’s build something that matters together.