Head of Commercial Counsel, San Francisco, CA

Our client, a high-growth enterprise AI company, has exclusively retained Solutus Legal Search to hire its Head of Commercial Counsel. This is one of the most important hires at the company right now — a senior commercial legal leader who will own deal execution across a portfolio of large, complex enterprise customers while building the processes and team capacity to scale.

This is a player-coach role: deeply hands-on in the near term, with a path to grow into the General Counsel as the company scales. The successful candidate will report directly to the President and Co-Founder and manage an existing small but growing commercial counsel function. This is not a role for someone who wants to manage from a distance — the company is looking for a commercial legal leader who sees their job as enabling the business, not just protecting it. The role is based in San Francisco with a strong in-office culture — three days per week minimum.

Key Responsibilities include::
• Own the full lifecycle of enterprise contract negotiation — MSAs, SaaS agreements, DPAs, order forms, and partnership contracts — with sophisticated counterparties including major banks, airlines, and financial services companies

• Resolve legal blockers on complex, high-value deals quickly and creatively, including navigating entrenched procurement and legal teams at large enterprises

• Develop and maintain scalable contract templates, fallback positions, and negotiation playbooks that keep the sales team moving without sacrificing company protection

• Manage and mentor existing commercial counsel, with the team expected to grow alongside revenue

• Advise on legal considerations unique to AI products: data privacy, model liability, output indemnification, and evolving AI regulation including the EU AI Act, CCPA, GDPR, and emerging U.S. state-level AI laws

• Partner with Product and Engineering on data use obligations, customer data handling, and security review processes

• Implement contract management systems and processes that scale with a rapidly growing sales pipeline

The Ideal Candidate::
• 8+ years of commercial legal experience, with the bulk of it in-house at a high-growth enterprise SaaS or technology company

• Demonstrated track record negotiating complex enterprise agreements with large, sophisticated counterparties — particularly in regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, telecom, or travel

• Experience navigating the organizational complexity of Fortune 100 legal and procurement teams

• Strong commercial instincts — understands revenue, deal structure, and risk trade-offs, not just legal exposure

• Player-coach mentality: equally comfortable diving into a redline and mentoring a junior attorney

• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment without heavy infrastructure or support

• Prior experience managing or building a commercial legal team from scratch is preferred

• Big Law commercial transactions background before going in-house and AI-native company experience and EU AI Act familiarity are a plus

This is an outstanding opportunity for a business-minded commercial attorney who wants to sit close to revenue, work directly with founders, and help shape the legal function at a company negotiating with some of the most sophisticated enterprise legal teams in the world. The role offers direct access to leadership, meaningful impact from day one, and a path to General Counsel as the company scales.

The company offers a competitive base salary of $325,000–$340,000 plus a generous equity package. Final compensation will depend on experience and scope.

Solutus Legal Search has been selected as the exclusive representative on this search.

Ref. #951-SLS