Senior Counsel, Governance - Oyster

About Oyster

Oyster is a global employment platform that lets companies hire, pay, and care for brilliant people anywhere. We are a fully distributed, remote-first company with a high-performing culture spread across 60+ countries.

Role Summary

As our Senior Counsel, Governance, you'll join Oyster's Legal team as the dedicated governance and entity-formation counsel supporting Global Expansions. Working directly with our Global Expansion team, you will make the structuring and licensing calls for legal entities, and then personally roll up your sleeves to help get them formed, filed, and audit-ready.

This is a 12-month, fixed-term engagement built for someone who wants outsized ownership over a fast-moving, high-visibility program, and who's comfortable being both the strategist and the person actually doing the work.

Key Responsibilities

• Entity Structuring & Formation: Lead governance and structuring decisions for each new direct entity launch, determining the right corporate form, ownership structure, and licensing pathway for each jurisdiction.
• Hands-On Launch Execution: Personally drive the practical work of standing up new entities, coordinating filings, registered agents/local service providers, director and officer appointments, bank account and licensing paperwork, and other set-up tasks.
• Regulatory & Licensing Research: Conduct jurisdiction-specific legal and regulatory research to identify entity, licensing, and governance requirements ahead of each launch.
• Corporate Documentation & Governance Records: Draft, review, and maintain foundational corporate documentation (formation documents, board minutes, governance policies, powers of attorney) for each new entity.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Partner closely with the Global Expansion launch team (Legal, Finance, Operations, People, Payroll, and Treasury) to sequence and de-risk entity launches against an aggressive project timeline.
• Risk Identification & Mitigation: Identify governance, licensing, and regulatory risk early in the launch process, and build practical, business-first solutions.
• Process & Knowledge Handoff: Document repeatable processes and playbooks for entity formation and governance to ensure clean knowledge transfer.

Core Requirements

• Qualified lawyer with 7+ years' experience in corporate governance, entity formation, and multi-jurisdictional entity management (ideally in SaaS, tech, or EOR/HR-tech environments).
• Demonstrated experience personally establishing and maintaining corporate entities across multiple jurisdictions (hands-on execution work like filings, registered agents, licensing applications).
• Demonstrated experience interacting directly with external counsel, corporate secretarial providers, regulators, and registered agents across multiple jurisdictions.
• Comfortable holding a power of attorney to represent company directors/officers where needed.
• Ability to operate with significant autonomy on a fast-moving, ambiguous, high-stakes project with minimal ramp-up time.
• Availability for a 12-month, fixed-term engagement.
• Based within +3 / -3 UTC timezone overlap.
• Fluency in both written and spoken English.

Bonus Points

• Prior experience with an EOR/PEO or global HR platform.
• Experience building governance playbooks or processes designed to be handed off to others.
• Project Management experience setting up entities in multiple jurisdictions.
• Familiarity with corporate governance tools (e.g., Klea), Notion, and Asana.
• Experience with e-signature platforms (DocuSign, HelloSign, local qualified e-sign providers) and wet signature flows.
• Experience managing jurisdiction-specific signing formalities (e.g., notarization, legalization/apostille, witness requirements).
• Familiarity with D&O insurance coverage and director indemnification agreements.

What We Offer

• Work from anywhere: Fully remote setup with no borders or HQ.
• Paid time off: 40 days off per year (including holidays and vacation).
• Mental health support: Access to Plumm, our mental well-being service.
• Wellbeing allowance: Monthly allowance in your ThanksBen wallet.
• Flexible parental leave: At least three months’ paid leave for all new parents.
• WFH stipend: Stipend for your laptop and home office equipment.