General Counsel / Head of Legal

The opportunity

Our client is a prominent, multi-entity group headquartered in Riyadh, with operations across the Kingdom andthe wider region and a clear path toward a public listing. As the group scales and matures its corporategovernance, it is establishing a chartered in-house legal function for the first time, and is seeking a GeneralCounsel to build and lead it.

This is a rare chance to stand up a group-wide legal function from the ground up, as a founding member of theexecutive team, during a defining pre-listing chapter.

The role

As General Counsel / Head of Legal, you will be the single accountable legal officer to the CEO and the Board,owning the group’s legal, governance, and compliance posture end to end. You will build the in-house legalteam, lead the group’s legal and governance readiness for its planned listing, and protect the business whileenabling its decisions to be taken lawfully, defensibly, and commercially.

What you will do

• Build and lead the in-house legal function, setting its structure, priorities, and annual legal plan.
• Own the group’s legal-risk posture and advise the CEO and Board on all material legal matters.
• Drive legal and governance readiness for the planned public listing, closing gaps to listing standard.
• Oversee board and company-secretarial governance: calendars, papers, minutes, resolutions, andstatutory registers and filings across all group entities.
• Govern external counsel, the legal panel, and the legal budget with discipline.
• Set and own the group’s contract-governance standard and the legal sign-off gate.
• Lead disputes and litigation strategy, protecting the group’s interests and quantifying its exposure.
• Own the compliance and integrity framework: code of conduct, anti-bribery, conflicts of interest, andwhistleblowing.

Requirements

What you will bring

• A qualified lawyer with a senior in-house or top-tier private-practice background.
• Strong Saudi corporate, commercial, labour, and litigation expertise, with multi-jurisdiction awareness.
• Depth in corporate governance and capital-markets / listing readiness, including CMA governance-regulations and company-secretarial discipline.
• Board-facing presence: the ability to advise and constructively challenge the executive, and to translate legal risk into clear business terms.
• Commercial judgment, a legal leader who enables good decisions rather than blocking them.
• A proven track record of building a function and managing external counsel to budget.
• Fluent Arabic and English.

Why this role

• Build a group-wide legal function from the ground up and shape it as a founding executive.
• A seat at the top table, reporting to the CEO and Board, at a pivotal moment for the group.
• Genuine scope and influence across a multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction organisation.