Legal advisory and risk management:

- Serve as principal legal advisor to the founder, management, and board, providing proactive and commercially grounded advice on the legal implications of business decisions.

- Run continuous risk assessment across the business, identifying and flagging exposures early with clear mitigation plans, and maintaining a company-wide risk register.

- Monitor legislative, regulatory, and market developments relevant to the food and D2C sector, and prepare the company ahead of change rather than in response to it.

Regulatory compliance:

- Ensure compliance across all laws applicable to a food manufacturing and D2C business, and build the internal policies, SOPs, and processes that make compliance systematic:

- Food safety and labelling: FSS Act 2006 and regulations, covering licensing, product approvals, labelling, claim substantiation, and recall procedures.

- Advertising and consumer protection: ASCI code, Consumer Protection Act 2019, and CCPA guidelines on misleading advertisements and endorsements.

- Labour and factory: Factories Act, the four labour codes (Wages, Industrial Relations, Social Security, Occupational Safety), Contract Labour, EPF and ESI, and POSH.

- Data protection: Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 across the website, app, and e-commerce channels.

- Packaging and metrology: Legal Metrology Act 2009 and the Packaged Commodities Rules.

- Environment: Plastic Waste Management Rules, Extended Producer Responsibility, and applicable environmental clearances.

ESG and sustainability:

- Own ESG and sustainability compliance, including applicable disclosure and reporting obligations such as EPR and, ahead of listing, BRSR.

- Advise the organization on evolving sustainability regulation and its operational and reporting implications.

Contracts and commercial:

- Draft, negotiate, and manage the full contract stack: contract manufacturing and co-packing, ingredient and material supply, marketplace and quick-commerce, logistics and fulfilment, marketing and influencer, vendor, and employment.

- Establish standard templates, playbooks, and approval thresholds so that routine contracting does not require legal review.

Corporate, secretarial, and transactions:

- Lead the company secretarial function and team, owning all statutory filings and compliances under the Companies Act 2013, both routine and exceptional.

- Lead legal workstreams for fundraising and, in due course, IPO readiness, including diligence, SEBI ICDR and LODR compliance, and transaction documentation.

- Maintain board, governance, and statutory records.

Litigation and representation:

- Manage disputes, legal notices, and litigation end to end.

- Represent the organization independently before regulators and in regulatory proceedings, deciding what to conduct in-house and what to direct through external counsel, and managing that counsel on cost and outcome.

Building the function:

- Establish the legal and compliance operating model, including the in-house versus external counsel split, and build the team as scope requires.

- Raise legal and compliance awareness across business teams so that issues surface early.