Vice President, Legal

Forward Networks is revolutionizing the way large networks are managed. The Forward Enterprise platform delivers a vendor-agnostic "digital twin" of the network, based on a mathematical model. The platform scales to support hundreds of thousands of network devices, whether cloud, hybrid cloud, or on-prem. It serves as a single source of truth for the network, enabling network operators to instantly verify security posture, accelerate troubleshooting, avoid outages, and modernize network management.

Over the past few years, Forward Networks has received tremendous industry recognition, including "Cool Vendor in Enterprise Networking" by Gartner, "Product of the Year" by Cloud Computing, "Hot Company" by Cyber Defense Magazine, "Enterprise Cloud Computing Software of the Year," and has been named to Fortune's "Best Workplaces in the Bay Area" list.

The company was founded by four Stanford PhD graduates who saw a massive opportunity to improve network operations. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, MSD Capital, Threshold Ventures, and Goldman Sachs.

Forward Networks is looking for an experienced Vice President, Legal located in the San Francisco Bay Area with the ability to be onsite at our Corporate Headquarters, located in Santa Clara, CA, at least twice a week.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and manage the company's legal department, overseeing all legal matters and ensuring efficient and effective legal operations
• Reports directly to the CEO
• Provide strategic legal advice and counsel to the CEO and Executive Team on a wide range of matters, including corporate governance, mergers & acquisitions, securities law, intellectual property, contracts, compliance, human resources, international expansion, privacy, and risk management.
• Be the first point of contact for all legal matters, and own follow ups through completion
• Draft, manage and drive all commercial contract negotiations (MSAs, EULAs, NDAs, reseller agreements, amendments, procurements, etc.)
• Maintain and update all company default contract documentation
• Implement best in class contract tracking software and processes for reporting, time tracking and process improvement
• Participate in growing and managing the IP portfolio with peers in Engineering and Product
• Own the legal aspects of privacy related practices for the company, including GDPR, CCPA, etc.
• Support the Security team on responding to security related requests as needed
• Maintain and build strong relationships with external counsel, leveraging their expertise and bandwidth when needed
• Advise on emerging regulations and implications to the company’s operations
• Partner with cross-functional teams to ensure all legal considerations are addressed in company-wide projects and initiatives

Qualifications:

• An expert attorney with exceptional law firm and in-house credentials. Admitted into and in good standing with the bar of California.
• Experience negotiating complex master service contracts with Fortune 500 customers
• At least 10 years’ experience including at least 5 years of strong leadership experience building, running and/or developing global, robust teams at a technology company
• Deep subject matter expertise in commercial transactions, in-house sales, SaaS and enterprise B2B transactions, including key substantive legal matters relevant to SaaS contracting such as commercial, data privacy and export control laws as well as intellectual property disputes and open source matters.
• Thorough knowledge of the differences between SaaS and on-prem software and their impacts on legal contracts
• Expertise and experience with federal government contracting
• Deep familiarity and demonstrated experience with 1) commercial contracts lifecycle management, procurement operations and driving automation and other efficiencies in the commercial space and 2) creating, implementing, improving, simplifying and ensuring adherence to systems, processes and procedures
• Ability to define and develop scalable legal policies and processes
• Skilled, effective and empathetic manager who is able to empower team members to achieve at a consistently high level while building trusted relationships
• Experience making significant decisions regarding legal and compliance risks in a fast-moving environment.
• Strong experience developing team’s ability to optimize negotiations and to adapt legal requirements in balanced, creative and pragmatic ways to facilitate clear and open communication at all levels of the organization
• Experience negotiating global transactions
• Strong professional judgment, practicality, and client service focus. Proactive and able to work efficiently, prioritize workflow, meet demanding deadlines, and manage multi-dimensional projects in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent legal analysis in both oral and written communication skills, giving attention to detail and an ability to produce high-quality work products

Nice to haves:

• Commercial litigation experience
• Experience working with the venture community and fundraising
• Experience taking a company through the IPO process
• Thorough knowledge of federal FAR and DFAR provisions
• AI technology experience

The base pay range for this role is between $285,000 and $300,000. Base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location