At Kensho, we hire talented people and give them the autonomy, support, and resources needed to build cutting edge technology and products. We produce a suite of AI-powered solutions that solves the challenges of the largest, most successful businesses and institutions, helping them make sense out of a world full of messy data.
Kensho’s business development team is at the forefront of commercializing ground-breaking artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for business and finance customers. Given the speed of innovation, legal precedents for AI licensing are lagging behind the markets’ eagerness to adopt AI solutions. Intellectual property (IP) rights, privacy, and confidentiality law’s applicability to AI are still in their infancy and the opportunity to establish best practices in an exciting and rapidly evolving industry is ripe.
As Legal Counsel for Commercial Strategy, you will be responsible for enabling Kensho’s business development team to craft AI Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) licensing contracts with customers in the highly regulated business and finance markets that balance Kensho’s long-term product interests, such as enabling machine learning (ML) model training, with customer interests, such as data protection and privacy.
This role places a heavy emphasis on iterative and adaptive design to commercial-legal strategy that will require you to spearhead commercial contract negotiations in the early days to first collate, distill, and shape customer feedback and then evolve Kensho’s standard legal terms and conditions. By extension, you will be afforded a great deal of discretion to define and responsibility to own Kensho’s commercial-legal strategy.
In this role, you will enjoy the rich and intimate culture and autonomy of a start-up company, while also benefiting from the extensive resources and career growth opportunities of a large global corporation. Unlike a traditional start-up role, you will serve as an orchestration layer with S&P Global’s legal organization, knowing when and where to leverage S&P global’s legal expertise and infrastructure.
At Kensho, we believe in flexibility-first, and give our employees the opportunity to work from where they feel most productive and engaged (must be in the United States). We also value in-person collaboration, so there may be times when travel to one of our Kensho hubs (NY/DC/MA) will be required for team meetings or company events.
This is A Good Position If You:
- Are Interested in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, especially natural language processing (NLP)
- Are a self-starter, who enjoys the challenge of working in fast-paced environments with a high degree of uncertainty
- Possess broad legal awarenesses and aptitudes, but also the ability to deep-dive into legal niches when necessary
- Have a flair for business strategy and appetite for justified business risks
What We Are Looking For:
- J.D. or an equivalent degree
- Must be admitted to the bar in the United States; NY preferred
- 2+ years of relevant (i.e., related to AI/SaaS commercial licensing) full-time legal experience required
What Really Gets Our Attention:
- Previous experience working at (i.e., in-house counsel) or with (i.e., as outside counsel at law firm) start-up companies whose primary business is SaaS licensing, or AI SaaS licensing more specifically
- Familiarly with (in order of importance): (1) Intellectual Property (IP) Rights, (2) Confidentiality, and (3) Privacy Law within the context of commercial contracting
- Ability to communicate in layman’s terms when needed with a wide variety of non-legal stakeholders including, but not limited to: product managers, engineers, salespeople, and executive leadership
- High emotional intelligence and ability to communicate confidently in high-stakes business conversations
What You’ll Be Doing:
- Tactics – Draft, review and negotiate a broad range of commercial agreements, including AI SaaS software licenses, data licenses, strategic partnerships, etc.
- Strategy – Refine, evolve, and augment existing Kensho commercial agreement standard terms and conditions to continually enable long-term strategic Kensho business objectives
- Diplomacy – Liaise with the S&P Global Corporate and Market Intelligence legal organizations to ensure alignment with S&P Global best practices and leverage specialty resources when needed
At Kensho, we pride ourselves on providing top-of-market benefits, including:
- Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance
- 100% company paid premiums
- Unlimited Paid Time Off
- 26 weeks of 100% paid Parental Leave (paternity and maternity)
- 401(k) plan with 6% employer matching
- Generous company matching on donations to non-profit charities
- Up to $20,000 tuition assistance toward degree programs, plus up to $4,000/year for ongoing professional education such as industry conferences
- Plentiful snacks, drinks, and regularly catered lunches
- Dog-friendly office (CAM office)
- In-office gyms and showers (CAM, DC)
- Bike sharing program memberships
- Compassion leave and elder care leave
- Mentoring and additional learning opportunities
- Opportunity to expand professional network and participate in conferences and events
Kensho is an Artificial Intelligence company that builds solutions to uncover insights in messy and unstructured data that enable critical workflows and empower businesses to make decisions with conviction.
Kensho was founded in 2013 and was acquired by S&P Global in 2018. Kensho continues to operate as a startup in order to maintain our distinct, independent brand and to promote our breakthrough, innovative culture. Our team of Kenshins enjoy a dynamic and collaborative work environment that runs autonomously from S&P Global, while leveraging the unparalleled breadth and depth of data and resources available as part of S&P Global. As Kenshins, we pride ourselves on maintaining an innovative culture that depends on diversity and inclusion.
We are an equal opportunity employer that welcomes future Kenshins with all experiences and perspectives. Kensho is headquartered in Cambridge, MA, with offices in New York City, and Washington D.C. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.
