General Counsel

About Applaudo

Applaudo is a technology services company with 700+ collaborators and 13+ years building digital products for clients across the Americas. We are a Google Strategic Partner with a track record of delivering for airlines, sports franchises, financial services, and public sector clients. We are now entering a new chapter: platform-scale, AI-native growth powered by a dual engine of organic expansion and disciplined acquisitions across LATAM.

Applaudo is scaling in three directions at once: we are acquiring, we are entering regulated government markets across the region, and we are redefining how technology services are delivered in an AI-native world. Each of those directions depends on legal infrastructure that does not exist by default. It has to be built. This role exists to build it.

We are looking for a General Counsel who sees Legal as a strategic enabler, not a gatekeeper. Someone who can close an acquisition in under 30 days and design frameworks that make the next one faster. Someone who turns public sector compliance into a moat. Someone who ships commercial contract capacity that scales with 30%+ annual growth without becoming the bottleneck.

What You Will Own

Legal infrastructure that enables Applaudo to execute strategy at speed while managing risk proactively. Specifically:

• M&A legal diligence, deal structuring, regulatory approvals, and post-close integration
• Multi-jurisdictional entity management and corporate governance across LATAM
• Public sector compliance programs and government contract legal support
• Commercial contract management, templates, automation, and self-service frameworks
• AI legal frameworks: intellectual property, liability allocation, data privacy, emerging regulation
• Employment law compliance across operating countries, including acquisition employee transfers
• Data sovereignty and privacy compliance across jurisdictions
• Dispute resolution, vendor agreements, and Board corporate governance support

What You Will Deliver in Your First 12 Months

• A reusable M&A legal playbook that closes diligence in under 30 days, applied to live deals
• Public sector compliance posture that opens bids in target LATAM government markets
• Commercial contract SLA of under 5 days for standard agreements, with automation in place for routine contracts
• Established AI IP and liability frameworks that are client-tested and defensible
• Multi-jurisdictional entity structures ready for immediate financial integration at acquisition close
• A legal team operating as a business partner, with visible impact on deal velocity and growth outcomes

Who You Are

Experience

• 15+ years in legal practice, including 5+ years as General Counsel or Deputy GC in a technology services company with cross-border LATAM operations
• Track record of M&A legal execution across at least 5 deals, ideally in cross-border LATAM transactions
• Direct experience with government contracting and compliance in LATAM markets
• Licensed attorney with bar admission in a relevant jurisdiction
• Fluent in English and Spanish

Technical Depth

• M&A: end-to-end deal execution from diligence through closing, with experience structuring for tax and regulatory optimization
• Multi-jurisdictional corporate law: entity management, governance, and regulatory compliance across multiple LATAM countries
• Public sector and government contract law: procurement regulations, compliance frameworks, and audit-ready documentation
• Technology and AI legal: IP frameworks for AI-generated content, data privacy, liability allocation, emerging AI regulation
• Commercial contracting at scale: template systems, automation, and self-service frameworks that reduce bottleneck
• Employment law across LATAM: multi-country workforce compliance and acquisition employee transfers

How You Operate

• Strategic enabler mindset: Legal accelerates business strategy, it does not brake it
• Comfortable with the speed and ambiguity of M&A-driven growth, able to provide sound counsel without paralyzing deals
• Builder of reusable frameworks: every legal challenge becomes a template that makes the next instance faster
• Translates legal risk into business terms without drowning leaders in legal complexity
• Proactive on regulatory trends: tracks emerging AI regulation, data privacy shifts, and government procurement changes ahead of urgency

What Makes This Role Different

You will build, not inherit. Applaudo is moving from an operating model optimized for a single-country, staff-augmentation services business to a platform company with inorganic growth, AI-native delivery, and public sector ambition. Much of the legal infrastructure for that future has not been built yet. You get to design it.

You will have a direct line to the CEO and the Board. Corporate governance, M&A decisions, regulatory strategy, and board-level compliance reporting run through you. This is a seat at the table, not a service function.

You will work at the frontier of AI legal practice. IP ownership for AI-generated deliverables, liability allocation in agentic systems, data handling in AI-native delivery: these are active questions without settled answers. You will set the standards that Applaudo and its clients rely on.

How We Work Together

The General Counsel sits on the executive team and partners closely with the CEO on strategy and governance, the CFO on deal economics and entity structuring, the CRO on commercial contract capacity, the VP of Public Sector Sales on government market compliance, the CTO on AI and data risk, and the Head of People Experience on employment law across jurisdictions. The role manages a team covering Legal Counsel, M&A, Commercial Contracting, Public Sector Compliance, AI & Data Privacy, and Entity & Employment Compliance.

How to Apply

Send your CV and a brief note on a legal infrastructure problem you built from scratch, and what it enabled the business to do as your cover letter to this application.

 

About Us

We Are Engineered Different.

At Applaudo, talented people design, build, and scale meaningful, AI-powered solutions that create real business impact. As an AI-native organization, we collaborate across design, development, cloud, data, and artificial intelligence to turn ideas into scalable products that transform how companies operate, make decisions, and grow.

We are building a high-performance culture grounded in five values: Empowering Excellence, Collaborative Teamwork, Unsolicited Respect, Consistent Transparency, and Efficient Communication. These define how we work, how we support one another, and how we hold ourselves accountable.

Applaudo is a place for people who want to learn fast, take ownership, and work alongside strong teams they are proud to belong to. Joining us means being part of an organization that is evolving intentionally, investing in modern ways of working, and leading AI-native transformation at scale.