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General Counsel

About Skillz:

Skillz is the leading mobile games platform connecting players in fair, fun, and meaningful competition.

The gaming industry is larger than movies, music, and books, with more than 2.7 billion gamers playing monthly and 10 million developers worldwide. Mobile is the fastest-growing segment of the gaming market, expected to increase from $68 billion in 2019 to $150 billion in 2025.

As the first publicly-traded mobile esports platform, Skillz has pioneered the future of the gaming industry. The Skillz platform helps developers build multi-million dollar franchises by enabling social competition in their games. Leveraging its patented technology, Skillz hosts billions of casual esports tournaments for millions of mobile players worldwide, and distributes millions in prizes each month.

Through its philanthropic initiatives, Skillz has harnessed the power of its platform to transform the way nonprofits engage with donors, enabling anyone with a mobile device to support causes such as the American Red Cross, Susan G. Komen, American Cancer Society, and NAACP by playing in Skillz tournaments.

Skillz has also earned recognition as one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, a two-time winner of CNBC’s Disruptor 50, one of Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Startups, and the #1 fastest-growing company in America on the Inc. 5000.

What We’re Looking For:

Skillz is looking for a General Counsel to join the senior leadership team and to help build, manage and lead the legal team at a company that is changing the world of esports and mobile gaming. As head of the department for one of America’s fast-growing companies and a newly public company, you will be responsible for effectively scaling the company’s legal function and you will work cross-functionally to play a central role in guiding Skillz on a broad range of domestic and global legal matters as we continue to scale at record pace. This role will report to the CEO and requires a broad understanding of the legal typical for the most senior legal executive of a large multinational business.

To be successful you should have significant experience managing and scaling the legal function in a large high-growth entrepreneurial public company company. Ideally, you have already lived through the hyper-growth of a multi-billion dollar public company, and are hungry to do it again bigger and better to create an industry-defining company!

Responsibilities & Competencies

• Department Plan: Develop and implement the Legal department’s mission and set strategy for best-in class legal functionality of high-growth public company.

• Scale the team: Enable uncompromisingly elite hiring and meritocratic performance management.

• Own the P&L: Build a legal department budget and ensure compliance.

• Build scalable processes: Build departmental systems and automate processes to enable the legal team to meet the growing business needs while achieving efficiency gains and quality improvements.

• Done it before : Experienced at building and leading the legal function of a high-growth public company.

• Willingness and Passion: Passion for the company’s mission and drive to build and lead the legal department of a $50B+ company with matching work ethic

• Leadership, mentorship and change management : Capacity and gravitas to provide guidance and direction that others willingly follow, and willingness to mentor to enable teammates to grow and develop. Comfortable driving and managing change management initiatives.

• Honest and transparent: Impeccable integrity and honor. elf-reflective about both wins and losses, delivers bad news immediately. Open to personal growth and always learning.

• Master of strategy, comfortable getting tactical: Sets and communicates a compelling strategic direction with business-minded legal acumen, but willing and able to roll up sleeves and be tactical.

• Excellent Communicator: Superior written, verbal and interpersonal communication skills with an acute ability to listen attentively and communicate effectively throughout all levels of the organization.
• Results driven: Thrives in metrics driven culture with experience setting and delivering upon OKRs.

Requirements

• Previous general counsel experience at a high-growth public company
• J.D. from a top-tier, accredited institution
• 20+ years of legal experience, including foundational training at a national law firm (preferably Am Law 200) and technology industry experience
• Proven experience building and leading teams in high-growth environments. A strong track record of positive outcomes for those you have hired and managed in the past.
• Demonstrated increasing levels of responsibility and has managed a team of 3+ reports
• Track record of a practical business and solution-oriented approach to resolving issues
• Proven ability to develop collaborative relationships with internal partners, excellent interpersonal, communication, analytical and influencing skills

Personal Attributes and Values

• Self-confident, self-motivated, self-driven leader who will speak up and does not succumb to groupthink. Comfortable weighing in or articulating a contrarian point of view in a collaborative setting. Embraces healthy conflict based on a foundation of trust in order to reach the best possible outcome
• Self-aware, collaborative, and open to feedback without becoming defensive or taking things personally
• Straightforward, no-nonsense style. Calm and level-headed under pressure.
• World-class communicator who leads by example and inspires teams at all levels of the organization
• Impeccable integrity and ethical standards. Honest, honorable, straightforward, and accustomed to driving alignment with peers and colleagues