Assistant General Counsel

An in-house transactional attorney who will play an important role in building a global AI-driven clean-tech company that invents breakthrough technology, discovers billions of dollars of minerals, and helps to stop climate change.

About the Company

KoBold Metals is a mineral exploration company inventing AI to explore for the metals we need for a low-carbon economy. Our business is discovering and developing mineral resources, and our objective is to achieve a step-change improvement in exploration success: we aim to discover more tier 1 resources, faster, and with fewer failures.

KoBold has built a fast-growing global portfolio of more than 50 exploration properties targeting nickel, copper, cobalt, and lithium, which range from 100%-owned to partnerships with majors, junior explorers, and prospectors.

Our team includes the best of the industry in exploration geoscience, data science, software engineering, operations, and business. Prior to joining KoBold, our team members made nearly 20 discoveries. Our exploration programs are co-led by our geoscientists and data scientists, who develop exploration hypotheses, rigorously quantify uncertainty in our understanding of the subsurface, and design data collection programs that most effectively reduce uncertainty, drawing upon a large suite of proprietary exploration technology built by our data scientists and software engineers. Our field programs validate and improve the system and have demonstrated material improvements over conventional exploration methods.

KoBold is privately held, and our investors include: institutional asset managers T. Rowe Rice and Canada Pension Plan Investments; technology venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz, Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, BOND Capital, Standard Investments, and Sam Altman’s Apollo Projects; and leading natural resources companies Equinor, Mitsubishi, and BHP.

Responsibilities

The Assistant General Counsel will:

• Be the third in-house counsel in a technology and mineral exploration company growing rapidly around the world

• Provide leverage and support to the GC and DGC so that they are more effective at advancing the company’s priorities

• Develop major parts of the company’s legal function, including worldwide contracting, legal entity management, employment matters, compliance with laws and contracts, and many other areas as the company as its legal functions grow

• Create processes and policies to help build a high-functioning legal department

• Represent the company in negotiations throughout the U.S. and abroad with mining companies, tech companies, governments, universities, vendors, and individuals

• Review, draft, and advise on complex transactions spanning multiple jurisdictions

• Lead due diligence efforts when the company is conducting diligence about an opportunity and when we are responding to diligence requests

• Provide immediate legal and business advice to internal clients who include senior executives, finance, corporate development, HR and talent acquisition, geologists, data scientists, and software engineers

• Write, revise, and review documents regarding every part of the business

• Guide and support the company’s global business operations using legal and business skills, such as management of confidential information, tax structuring, and building organizational processes

• Work across the company to set and meet high standards of ethics, with a focus on safety, anti-corruption, community support, environmental protection, anti-discrimination, and integrity

• Hire and supervise outside counsel across many subject areas and jurisdictions

• Work on whatever needs to be done

Qualifications

The candidate must have:

• 8-15 years of experience, with a minimum of 4 years at a top law firm as a corporate associate, followed by time working in-house

• Solid experience managing legal entities (particularly foreign subsidiaries) and reviewing/drafting commercial contracts (vendor, consulting, services, SaaS, licensing, IT)

• Experience implementing a CLM (contract lifecycle management system) 

• Mergers and acquisitions/joint ventures and/or employment-related agreements are a plus 

• Strong desire and ability to provide leverage, support, and partnership to the GC and DGC

• Interest in working in a global company and learning many different foreign legal systems and business environments

• Interest in working in a company that requires high levels of collaboration among teammates working remotely across many time zones and continents. 

• Strong desire and ability to develop relationships throughout the company and beyond

• Strong organizational and communication skills

• Interest in working in a science-based company where most colleagues are scientists and science is the focus of many company meetings and documents

• Strong ability to learn new tools and solve new problems continuously

• Strong ability to be a leader in the setting a high standard of ethics

• An optimistic attitude toward work and people

• J.D. from a top law school and active admission to a state bar

It is not necessary to have experience with mining or mineral exploration; the successful candidate will be able to learn what’s needed about the industry on the job.

KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunities for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.

This position is full-time, exempt.

Salary range: $190,000 - $235,000 + equity

Location: Remote, anywhere in the U.S.

All candidates must be legally authorized to work in the U.S.