Senior Legal Counsel at Equinix

This new opportunity of Senior Legal Counsel, Corporate is a role that will be part of our core global xScale Legal team. The xScale business within Equinix is fast growing and has been established as multiple joint ventures set up with investment partners to pursue our larger scale deployments with certain nominated cloud service and technology providers. 

Responsibilities

• Act as a member of the team developing specific expertise to support our xScale business within Equinix, including a deep knowledge of the JV contractual structure, and leverage the expertise of Equinix in developing and operating world class xScale data centers
• Support for corporate law aspects of organic and inorganic expansion of the xScale business, including support for any M&A transactions conducted through the xScale joint ventures, negotiating principal joint venture agreements with investor partners and all ancillary corporate agreements to support the xScale business model, working closely with our Tax and Treasury teams to structure these corporate arrangements in an optimal way for Equinix and the JV, advising on structuring issues, advising on use of legal entities, incorporation of new entities, etc.
• Support corporate law aspects of any exit of investors from an xScale joint venture or other monetization solutions that the xScale business may pursue from time to time
• Leading corporate restructuring projects within the xScale business portfolio, including undertaking company statutory mergers or transfers of assets, share recapitalizations, etc.
• Support for ensuring compliance with regard to xScale and wider Equinix policies, processes and procedures to ensure proper governance is followed including managing the series of inter-company agreements in place to support the xScale operating model and Equinix’s status as a US Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), addressing issues from time to time, etc. 
• Coordinating with other Equinix legal team members supporting the xScale business, including those responsible for maintaining the xScale group legal entities, coordinating filing of annual returns and maintaining updated corporate records, etc.
• Advising the xScale business and other functional teams on ad hoc corporate legal or regulatory issues affecting the xScale joint venture business, including guidance on matters such as governance, structuring matters, rights and obligations under the JV partnership agreement and the commercial agreements between Equinix and the JV, advising upon Directors’ duties etc. 
• Facilitating and coordinating legal updates for stakeholder and investor calls, collecting agenda items, taking notes and following up on actions
• Coordinating legal due diligence across various joint venture set up, monetarization and financing workstreams. Archiving project information and monitoring any open actions after project closure
• Assist with drafting and negotiating NDAs, simple consents, notices and other straightforward corporate and / or real estate documents
• Initiate and lead improvement initiatives, such as putting in place processes and tools that promote efficient delivery of legal support to the xScale business and cross functional collaboration
• Liaison with external legal counsel in various jurisdictions engaged to provide legal support for the various xScale business activities referred to above, where local law input is required including managing a legal subject and relationships with external legal counsel

Qualifications

• Degree qualification, with solid post qualification corporate law and / or governance experience in a reputable law firm and/or a large multi-national organization
• In-house experience, including by way of secondment, is desirable but not essential
• Experience of working in a dynamic, global business environment is preferred 
• IT, telecom and/or real estate industry experience is preferred 
• Strong communication and relationship building skills, and experience (internal or external) working with other business focused personnel 
• Ability and drive to take initiative and ownership of projects and tasks
• Strong attention to detail and ability to work with tight deadlines 
• Strong ability to organise and prioritise tasks and workload, and good administrative skills
• Strong ability to take a pragmatic and commercial approach. Ability to multi-task and work with limited supervision