VP Legal & Company Secretary

About Sonder

At Sonder, we believe every person deserves to feel safe, supported, and empowered to be at their best, wherever they are. We're redefining workplace health, safety, and wellbeing through a seamless blend of technology and human expertise. Sonder's mobile platform provides 24/7, real-time support from a dedicated team of safety, medical, and mental health professionals, ensuring members receive immediate care when they need it most. In critical situations, we go beyond digital support, offering on-the-ground assistance to manage time-sensitive incidents.

We're also actively building toward an AI-native organisation, using real-time insights to help organisations take proactive steps toward a healthier, safer future with direct, measurable impact on the bottom line.

Since our founding in 2017, we've grown rapidly across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Backed by Seek and Blackbird, we support over one million members and 200+ team members globally. We're well-capitalised, scaling fast, and the work we do genuinely matters.

About the Role

Sonder is looking for a VP Legal & Company Secretary to lead our legal function at a pivotal point in the company's growth, and to do it with a builder's mindset, not just a lawyer's. Reporting to the CFO, you'll manage a team of two Legal Counsel and our external counsel relationships, while acting as Company Secretary to the Board, running Board meetings and governance end to end and supporting investor relations.

We've entered a new era in how we think a legal function should be run. This isn't a BAU role. You'll hold a genuine mandate to re-architect how legal operates, from the ground up, using modern tooling including AI to redesign workflows, cut cycle times, and transition legal from a bottleneck to a value partner in the business, accelerating customer growth in the process. You'll need to think like a product manager as much as a lawyer: able to look at a broken process, diagnose it from first principles, design the fix, and then project-manage it into existence. This systems-thinking mindset - logical, structured, relentlessly focused on improvement - is as important to us as your legal expertise, and it's what will separate a strong candidate from the right one.

You'll work closely with Sales, Product and Customer Success to make our contracting process faster and simpler for everyone, and you'll be a key voice in shaping how Sonder scales as an AI-native business.

What You'll Be Doing

• Lead and manage the legal function, overseeing legal service delivery and resourcing against company goals, strategy, and priorities
• Own the redesign of legal and Company Secretary workflows around AI and automation, this is a build mandate, not an optimisation project
• Work cross-functionally with Sales, Commercial, Customer Success and Product to redesign the end-to-end customer contracting experience, from proposal through to renewal, removing friction and cutting cycle times
• Act as Company Secretary, accountable to the Board Chair, CEO and CFO for all governance and , Board meeting responsibilities, and supporting investor relations responsibilities
• Provide expert, commercial legal and strategic advice to the executive leadership team across contracts, disputes, business structure, employment law, data privacy, IP, and regulatory matters
• Support corporate transactional work including fundraising, secondary sales, M&A, and multi-jurisdictional employee equity plans
• Manage a team of in-house counsel and coordinate external counsel relationships
• Monitor upcoming legal and regulatory change and translate it for the broader business

What You'll Bring

• 10+ years post-qualification experience, with considerable in-house experience in a fast-growth environment
• Corporate and commercial law background, with experience across SaaS, employment law, data privacy, technology and IP
• Current Australian practising certificate (unrestricted)
• LLB, Juris Doctor or equivalent qualification
• Experience supporting corporate transactions, including fundraising, secondary sales, M&A and multi-jurisdictional employee equity plans
• Demonstrated systems-thinking: a track record of identifying broken or manual processes, designing a logical fix, and driving it through to implementation, not just conceptual recommendations
• A genuine track record of using AI and automation to cut legal cycle times, from contract automation and DoA automation through to faster drafting and review, able to go deep on how, not just what
• Advanced drafting and negotiation skills across a broad range of commercial agreements
• Strong commercial acumen and the ability to balance risk against pragmatic, business-first outcomes
• Experience managing an in-house team and coordinating external counsel
• Comfort operating without a large team beneath you, this role is about designing and driving change personally, not just delegating it

Nice-to-Haves

Knowledge of the healthcare sector and its regulatory environment

Why Join Sonder?

At Sonder, we thrive in a fast-paced, high-performance environment with a strong commitment to our people. Our team is a collaborative, vibrant group of passionate professionals, dedicated to making a real impact on people's lives every day.

• Hybrid and flexible working environment with the perfect balance of in-office collaboration and work from home flexibility
• Free Sonder app access for you and your family, with 24/7 support
• Paid parental leave: 12 weeks for Primary Carers and 4 weeks for Secondary Carers, with Primary Carers returning at 80% for the first 3 months at full pay
• True AI-native organisation with access to Claude, Gemini and other tools to experiment, automate, and drive real efficiency gains, no matter the role
• 2 days of study leave per year
• Employee Share Option Plan (ESOP) so you can share in Sonder's success
• Salary packaging and novated leasing
• $250 annual wellbeing fund
• Free coffee
• Dog-friendly office at Sydney HQ
• 2 days of volunteer leave per year

Check out our life page for more: Sonder Life on LinkedIn

Sonder is for Everyone - we are committed to fostering a workplace that reflects the rich diversity of the communities we serve. We encourage applications from people of all ages, abilities, cultural backgrounds, gender identities, sexual orientations, and religious beliefs, and strongly encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to apply. All hiring decisions are based on merit, capability, and alignment with the role.

#LI-Hybrid