What are the responsibilities and job description for the Legal & Business Operations Director position at PhaseV?
PhaseV is seeking a commercially minded operations leader with a strong legal foundation to help scale our business across various partnerships. This role sits at the intersection of legal, commercial operations, and cross-functional execution. Reporting to the VP of Finance & Operations, you will partner closely with Legal, Business Development, R&D, Finance, and other cross-functional teams to help accelerate commercial execution while ensuring appropriate legal and operational rigor. Based in the U.S. you will work closely with our existing legal function in the US and Israel, coordinating across offices to triage legal matters, negotiate commercial agreements, and work external legal resources as appropriate.
Beyond legal, you will lead strategic operational initiatives that improve how the company executes, scales, and partners with customers. This role is ideal for someone who wants to build upon their legal foundation and apply it to our fast-paced, growing startup.
Key Responsibilities
- Legal Management
- Serve as the legal partner for the U.S. commercial organization.
- Draft, review, and negotiate commercial agreements, including NDAs, MSAs, SaaS agreements, data licensing agreements, consulting agreements, and vendor contracts.
- Triage legal requests and determine when escalation to specialized counsel is appropriate.
- Coordinate outside counsel when specialized expertise is required.
- Develop scalable contract templates, playbooks, and approval processes.
- Partner closely with the Legal Director (Israel) to ensure consistent legal support globally.
- Business Operations & Strategic Projects
- Lead cross-functional initiatives that improve how the company operates and scales.
- Partner with finance, legal, operations, BD, and other teams on company-wide process improvements.
- Identify operational bottlenecks and drive improvements across the org.
- Support strategic partnerships, corporate initiatives, and executive projects.
- Evaluate and implement systems, tools, and workflows that improve organizational efficiency.
- Drive operational improvements that reduce friction across teams.
- Build strong relationships with commercial stakeholders, acting as a trusted business advisor rather than a downstream legal reviewer.
- Assist with financing, strategic transactions, and other corporate initiatives.
Key Success Factors
- enjoys solving ambiguous business problems
- exercises sound judgment with limited direction
- balances legal rigor with business pragmatism
- is equally comfortable negotiating contracts and improving internal processes
- builds trust across technical, commercial, and executive teams
Qualifications & Required Skills
- 5 years of legal experience, incl.
- law firm experience
- In-house commercial legal experience (preferably at least 1 at a Series A or later company)
- Experience with at least one of the following: high-growth technology, SaaS, AI and/or pharma/ life sciences.
- Familiarity with at least one: privacy, data licensing, AI, IP, and clinical research agreements.
- J.D. & admission to practice in at least one U.S. jurisdiction.
- Experience negotiating commercial agreements.
- Strong business judgment and practical risk assessment.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
- Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally.