Director of Legal, Product Foundations

Our client, Vercel, is seeking a Director of Legal, Product Foundations.

About Vercel:

Vercel gives developers the tools and cloud infrastructure to build, scale, and secure a faster, more personalized web. As the team behind v0, Next.js, and AI SDK, Vercel helps customers like Ramp, Supreme, PayPal, and Under Armour build for the AI-native web.

Our mission is to enable the world to ship the best products. That starts with creating a place where everyone can do their best work. Whether you're building on our platform, supporting our customers, or shaping our story: You can just ship things.

About the Role:

Vercel is hiring a Director of Legal, Product Foundations, to build the legal foundations that enable our product velocity at scale. The core priority for this role is leading privacy and regulatory matters on the legal team; you will also oversee IP and litigation.

You will report to Vercel’s VP of Legal and partner closely with Security, Trust & Safety, and GRC, as well as product, engineering, and other teams.

This role is based in SF, where we have a 3-day/week in-office requirement.

What You Will Do:

• Lead Vercel’s privacy program, regulatory strategy and frameworks, IP strategy, litigation, and the legal team’s incident response processes
• Translate complex requirements into business-oriented, actionable guidance so product teams can continue to ship fast
• Build scalable programs using policies, playbooks, templates, training, and AI

About You:

• California Bar admission or eligible for Registered In-House Counsel exception, and in good standing.
• 12 years of legal experience, including meaningful product counseling, privacy, and/or regulatory experience in-house at a high-growth technology company serving enterprise customers
• Strong understanding of AI, cloud services, and general b2b SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS business practices and relevant global regulatory requirements
• Strong judgment and creativity around risk-assessment and mitigation. Able to make decisions with imperfect facts, embracing Vercel’s speed and obsession with product innovation
• Deep technical literacy. Comfortable mapping technical architectures, data flows, and controls into legal risk frameworks. Excited to dig deep to understand Vercel’s evolving product suite.
• Exceptional communication and advocacy skills, particularly with non-lawyers
• Cooperative approach, willing to take on additional responsibilities where no job is too big or too small
• Experience managing legal teams, building strategic programs, and partnering with senior business and technical leaders.
• Fluency with AI tools

Bonus If You:

• Prior history leading litigation and IP (including familiarity with open source software)
• Experience supporting IPO readiness, M&A integration, and cyber incidents
• Hands-on experience with DMCA, Digital Services Act, HIPAA, FedRAMP, and other regulations and certifications applicable to Vercel

Benefits:

• Competitive compensation package, including equity.
• Inclusive Healthcare Package.
• Learn and Grow - we provide mentorship and send you to events that help you build your network and skills.
• Flexible Time Off.
• We will provide you the gear you need to do your role, and a WFH budget for you to outfit your space as needed.

Vercel has exclusively engaged Kerwin Associates to conduct this search. Any resumes sent directly to Vercel will be forwarded to Kerwin Associates. If you are interested in speaking about or applying for this role, please contact Anne Kerwin Payne (anne@kerwin.com) at Kerwin Associates.