Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

How you can help us achieve our mission

Microsoft has an immediate opening for an experienced Commercial Attorney to join its European Legal Central Team (ELCT) in Corporate External & Legal Affairs (CELA). In this management role, you will lead and develop a team of lawyers working at the cutting edge of digital transformation for Microsoft’s most strategic customers in EMEA and support the EMEA strategic partnerships business group.  The ELCT is a group of attorneys, paralegals and other professionals located across Europe that are focused on driving impact across the region’s most strategic initiatives through teamwork, collaboration and innovation.

Responsibilities

People Management

As a leader and manager of senior attorneys, deliver success through empowerment and accountability by meeting Microsoft’s management excellence priorities to model, coach and care.

Creates a collaborative and inclusive team culture leveraging the diversity of the individuals in the team to drive impact and builds inclusive strategies through empathy, active listening, creating a shared understanding amongst stakeholders and influencing for impact to deliver results.

Embody our culture and values.

Legal Advice and Counsel

Lead deal negotiator in our most complex commercial transactions and legal advisor to a business group driving high-impact strategic pursuit customer partnerships to drive cloud consumption, anticipating and addressing complex legal and business issues.

Achieves business goals in customer negotiations through active listening and collaborative solutions, including designing negotiation strategies in partnership with sales leaders, subject matter experts, operations and finance leaders.

Strategic partner to internal stakeholder groups across the company to facilitate collaboration, solutions, decision-making and deal velocity.

Identifies and solves for systemic issues, provides expertise and leads efforts to innovate how we operationalize our legal support and increase the organization’s capability to support strategic commercial engagements.

Reviews, interprets, and analyzes legal information and is recognized as a proven internal thought leader by maintaining a strong understanding of primary legal area and of legal principles outside of primary area; leads the complex analysis of information for value, validity, and accuracy in preparation for presentation of legal matters.

Ensures business is being conducted in a legally compliant manner and mitigates associated risks; advises and helps clients understand complex compliance issues; facilitates development of creative solutions to complex issues.

Operational Excellence

Drives the adoption of new tools and processes that drive scale and commercial legal excellence and assumes a leadership role in contributing to and innovating for operational improvements.

Partners with outside counsel and other external resources, including manages and prioritizes expenses to allocated budget; contributes to budget development for practice group; works within and manages budgets for projects.

Drives high-impact cross-team projects to meet the changing business environment and ensures the team is achieving commitments.

Representing Microsoft

Takes an active role in industry or legal associations and external outreach initiatives to build broader connections; identifies opportunities for employees/team to be engaged.

Develops positive relationships with external and internal legal professionals, academics, government officials, customers, or partners in an effort to protect and advocate Microsoft's interests

Communication

Leads and encourages collaboration with Legal and Corporate Affairs, across internal groups, senior management, senior-level business leaders, and clients to ensure a coordinated Legal and Corporate Affairs voice; provides guidance to frame issues in a clear and concise manner.

Coaches, manages, and improves decision making by key stakeholders including senior-level business leaders by organizing and simplifying complex/multi-dimensional issues and recommending a clear course of action among alternatives.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

Juris Doctorate Degree or Equivalent International Legal Degree OR, Completion of Legal Apprenticeship

Experience as a practicing attorney with a current active license to practice law

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

Extensive experience as an attorney with a passion for technology, preferably with a blend of experience at a law firm and in-house at a global company advising executive level business clients

Significant experience and knowledge of commercial, privacy, intellectual property laws, open source and related areas of law

Demonstrable international experience as an attorney with complex deal negotiations across multiple jurisdictions

Experience in managing people remotely and at a senior level

Professional level written and spoken English

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

Service-oriented and customer obsessed; bias for action in a fast-paced, highly matrixed environment

Enthusiastic "team player" who enjoys working in a multi-cultural and language environment that drives collaboration by building trust and partnerships that lead to effective collaboration in a complex stakeholder environment, including with executive business leaders.

Demonstrates leadership and intuitive people skills with a strategic mindset. Ability to build a strong team culture and develop a high-performing team.

Comfort with ambiguity and ability to drive clarity through communications by simplifying the complex and charting a course of action that delivers results.

Ability to understand the parts of the business and their interrelationships. This includes understanding the industry, competition, and anticipating future opportunities and challenges.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.