Member of Specialist Staff (Head of Legal & Regulatory) @ Zuba
Legal, Compliance / Regulatory
Posted on Aug 6, 2026
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Member of Specialist Staff (Head of Legal & Regulatory) @ Zuba
🇬🇧 London (100% in-person)
💰 Competitive (incl. equity)
About Zuba
About the role
We are looking for a Head of Legal & Regulatory to own the function outright: licensing strategy across every jurisdiction we operate in, the compliance programme that keeps real money moving safely, and the commercial contracts that open new corridors. You’ll be the senior legal and regulatory voice in the company, work directly with the founders, and build the team, starting with a Legal & Regulatory Analyst reporting to you.
This is a rare shape of role: general counsel scope at infrastructure pace, in the most interesting corner of financial regulation right now. Stablecoin-native payments across emerging markets means regulated payments law, digital-asset regulation, and frontier-market licensing in one seat, at a company where legal is expected to open corridors, not slow them down. The role carries the MLRO appointment, so eligibility to hold it is a requirement.
What you'll own
Licensing strategy end to end. Applications, regulator correspondence, and ongoing obligations across Canada (MSB, RPAA), the US (FinCEN, state MTL strategy), the EU (CASP, PSD2), the UK, and a growing set of African regimes. You decide the sequencing: where we apply, where we acquire, and where we rely on partners.
The compliance programme. KYB onboarding, sanctions and PEP screening, transaction monitoring, on-chain analytics, and the governance behind it all. You design controls that satisfy multiple regulators without multiplying headcount.
Commercial legal. Partner, client, and infrastructure agreements: the negotiation posture, the template machinery, and the judgement calls on which risks to fight and which to carve out and move past.
Regulator, bank, and counsel relationships. You’re in the room with regulators and bank compliance teams, and you scope and drive external counsel rather than being driven by them.
The team. Hire and lead the function, starting with the Legal & Regulatory Analyst, and build the systems that let a small team cover a global perimeter.
Who you are
You’ve done this at a serious level. 4+ years PQE across financial regulation, payments, or fintech, including time in-house at a regulated payments, e-money, or digital-asset business. You’ve run licensing processes and faced regulators directly.
You are fluent in the stablecoin regulatory landscape, or close enough to get there fast: MiCA, the GENIUS Act era in the US, and the patchwork of VASP regimes emerging across our markets.
You’re commercially minded. You measure legal by corridors opened and deals closed safely, not memos produced. You know which risks need fighting and which need a carve-out.
You build systems. Templates, automated workflows, AI-assisted execution. You design the machine and apply your judgement where it matters, rather than doing everything manually and calling it rigour.
You produce clean, fast output. Regulator responses, board papers, and negotiation positions that are clear, correct, and delivered when the business needs them.
You’re MLRO-eligible. This role carries the MLRO appointment and the personal regulatory accountability that comes with it. You’ve held the function before, or you’re demonstrably ready to hold it and would clear the fit-and-proper bar.
Bonus: You’ve held an MLRO appointment at a payments or digital-asset business, have direct exposure to African regulatory regimes, or have scaled a legal and compliance function from 1 person to a team.
Some topics you'll think about
What is the smartest licensing sequencing as we expand: which licences do we acquire, which do we apply for, and where do we rely on partners?
What does a bank's compliance team need to see before onboarding a stablecoin-native payments company, and how do we make that a repeatable pack rather than a bespoke effort each time?
Where does AI genuinely change legal and compliance execution, and where does human judgement remain the product?
How do we run a compliance programme that satisfies regulators in 4+ jurisdictions with a team you can count on one hand?
What we offer
💸 Competitive salary + meaningful equity, and we’ll show you the maths
🚀 Real ownership: you build and lead the function
🧠 No layers: everyone works directly with the founders
🤖 The best AI tools money can buy, for everyone
🌍 Paid travel to the markets we serve
🍔 In past 8pm? Dinner and the ride home are on us
🍹 Team off-sites & regular socials
Our hiring process
We keep it fast and transparent.
Intro chat (30 mins) with Josiah (CEO & Co-Founder). An informal conversation about your background, how you think about regulation as an enabler, and what you’re looking for.
Legal & regulatory deep dive (60 mins). Walk us through a licensing process you ran, a regulator relationship you managed, and a commercial negotiation you led. We want specifics.
Work trial (2 days, paid). The best way to know if we’re a good fit is to work together, and we pay for your time. You’ll spend two days with us at our Central London office, working on live legal and regulatory threads.
Offer. If all goes well, we’ll make you an offer, and we can’t wait to welcome you aboard!