As the Senior Legal Counsel, Commercial and Procurement, you will report to the Senior Managing Counsel, Procurement. You will work directly with the Procurement Team to understand the projects, initiatives and deliverables required from a Commercial and Procurement Legal perspective. You will assist with striking the right balance between Booking.com’s preferred contractual positions, those of the regulated third parties with whom we negotiate, and market standard positions. You will also work with the Product Teams (AI), especially on AI risk assessments.
You will draw upon your legal knowledge, business acumen and excellent drafting and negotiating skills to provide on-the-ground support and identify and obviate potential legal issues, ultimately helping to achieve the functional business objectives which means, you will:
be great at prioritising and managing a diverse range of priorities, and negotiating agreements, from letters of intent to complex multi-brand agreements with third parties;
have a proactive mindset to help advise, educate and guide the business through the internal commercial and procurement legal processes;
be solution oriented, providing impactful risk based analysis and advice to unlock challenges and move projects forward;
draw upon your experience to build processes and efficiencies, identifying the opportunities to have impact and bring improvements;
be experienced in negotiating technology agreements (SAAS in particular);
be experienced in negotiating agreements where artificial intelligence is a primary and/or secondary service and you will have strong IP knowledge helping your negotiations;
be experienced in third party vendor risk assessment processes; and
have excellent drafting and negotiation skills (whether using our standard forms or otherwise) and managing the process from inception through to signature.
You will probably be thinking about where a career at Booking.com will take you. You might have your sights set on a Senior Managing Counsel or Director role, or you may be planning your route to the Chief Legal and Public Affairs Officer position. This will be your first step in the right direction.
Key Responsibilities
- Work directly with the Procurement, Product Legal (AI), Intellectual Property (IP) and various business teams (such as Customer Service, People Teams, Finance Teams) as a reliable and commercially minded first point of legal contact within the Corporate & Commercial Legal Team.
- Draft and negotiate clear and commercially appropriate agreements and help navigate agreed parameters and guidelines as appropriate for our relationships with regulated third parties (designing and maintaining any new parameters and guidelines for these specific contracts to bring efficiencies and consistency).
- Running risk assessments which involves the understanding of legal and commercial risks (AI, IP, Data, Litigation, Contractual), mapping that against a risk matrix and advising go or no go.
- Advise on IP commercial and contract litigation legal risks associated with AI and GenAI across the business.
- Build upon the existing relationship between Procurement and Procurement Legal and bring further collaboration and improvements.
- Be well structured, clear and organised, with an ability to prioritise and drive progress within a very fast paced environment.
- Demonstrate a collaborative approach to getting the job done, drawing on technical specialist support from other members of the Legal & Public Affairs function and with a range of stakeholders both within the business and externally.
- Research new legal and commercial topics and confidentially turn research into pragmatic legal advice and actions.
- Create and deliver guidance documents and training material for teams within the business under the direction of the Senior Managing Legal Counsels.
- Support with the creation and implementation of efficient and scalable ways of working to enable sustainable business growth.
Requirements
- EU, UK or US law degree.
- At least 4 years’ experience in a reputable law firm or in-house team.
- Experience in procurement, commercial contracting, tech agreements (SAAS), AI/GenAI is an advantage.
- Knowledge in Privacy and Intellectual Property Law is an advantage.
- Native or fluent English speaking and writing skills.
- Excellent communication skills (written and oral).
- Excellent attention to detail.
- Excellent organisational and project management skills and ability to meet deadlines, prioritising appropriately.
- Excellent drafting skills.
- Confidence in your ability to provide assistance to the legal team and business units.
- Able to demonstrate commercial awareness and understanding of the business requirements.
- Professional and collaborative approach.
- A high standard of knowledge and use of Microsoft Office applications (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) and Google Suite (Google Sheets, Google Docs).
Pre-Employment Screening
If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.
