Role Overview:

The Senior Manager - Legal & Compliance fills a critical leadership role in driving legal governance, contract lifecycle discipline, and regulatory compliance across a global research institute and its commercial operations subsidiary in India. This position operates across two distinct operating structures a non-profit development organization and a commercial research entity. The primary objective is to act as a strategic enabler who facilitates programmatic and commercial success while maintaining robust legal guardrails and risk mitigation strategies.

Reporting To: Director - Finance & Administration

Location: New Delhi, India (Hybrid: ~3 days/week in-office)

Key Responsibilities:

1. Strategic Legal Guidance & Risk Control:

- Serve as the primary point of contact for all organizational contracts, agreements, legal queries, and risk frameworks.

- Balance business facilitation with regulatory rigorestablishing strong guardrails without creating operational friction.

- Act as the India Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for regional and global risk, legal, and compliance leadership.

2. Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM):

- End-to-end management of contract drafting, review, negotiation, and execution (grant agreements, collaboration agreements, commercial contracts, leases, NDAs, and MoUs).

- Manage the CLM tool and repository to enforce approval workflows, track Turnaround Times (TATs), and deliver executive reporting.

3. Statutory Compliance & Governance:

- Lead full legal and regulatory compliance across both Non-Profit and For-Profit commercial operations.

- Oversee statutory compliance management platforms to track adherence to DPDP Act, EU GDPR, Civil/Criminal frameworks, and New Labour Codes.

- Maintain working knowledge of non-profit and commercial financial/regulatory requirements in India (FCRA, FEMA, Transfer Pricing, GST).

- Ensure full compliance across corporate secretarial, real estate lease, and employment law domains.

4. Team Leadership & Stakeholder Management:

- Direct management of two (2) legal and compliance team membersproviding work allocation, coaching, review, and capability building.

- Collaborate across internal program divisions, infrastructure units, global leadership teams, and external legal counsel.

Candidate Profile & Qualifications:

1. Educational Background:

Mandatory: Bachelor's degree in Law (LLB) from a recognized university.

Preferred: Company Secretary (CS) certification and/or Master of Laws (LLM).

2. Required Experience:

- 10-12+ years of progressive legal and compliance experience.

- Prior experience in Social Development, Non-Profit, NGO, Academic Research, or Global Public Health sectors is strongly preferred.

- Proven experience handling cross-border agreements, grant workflows, and complex multi-stakeholder contracts.

- Experience utilizing legal technology tools (CLM software, compliance tracking platforms, document management systems, and e-signatures).

3. Core Competencies:

- High Emotional Intelligence: Calm, composed, and empathetic communication style suited to a social development culture.

- Balanced Judgement: Ability to make nuanced decisions on when to grant operational exceptions versus when to enforce hard legal boundaries.

- Proactive Ownership: A self-starter capable of managing multiple priorities in a dynamic, matrixed environment.

Work Culture & Benefits:

- Flexible Hybrid Environment: Outcome-focused work structure with an expectation of ~50-60% office presence (~3 days per week) at the New Delhi office.

- Fixed Salary Model: Pure fixed CTC structure.

- Comprehensive Healthcare: 5 Lakh Medical, 10 Lakh Accidental, and 20 Lakh Life Cover provided over and above CTC.

- Professional Growth: Dedicated annual Learning & Development allowance (48,500).

- Tech Reimbursements: Monthly allowance (1,250) for mobile and internet expenses.