Senior Legal Counsel

●      Full-time; reporting to Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel

●      Southwark, London / Remote (UK)

●      UK Right to work required

●      £97,000, annual bonus and share options

●      Start Date: Early 2025

PensionBee Background

For far too long, pensions have been difficult to understand and manage. Founded in 2014, we aspire to make as many people as possible pension confident so that everyone can enjoy a happy retirement.

PensionBee is creating a global leader in the consumer retirement market with over £5.5 billion in assets on behalf of more than 260,000 customers. We help our customers to combine their retirement savings into a new online account, which they can manage from the palm of their hand.

PensionBee accounts are invested by the world’s largest investment managers, collectively looking after more than $10 trillion in savings between them. Each PensionBee customer has a personal account manager (“BeeKeeper”) to guide them through their savings and retirement journey. PensionBee has an “Excellent” Trustpilot rating based on over 10,000 reviews.

As a public company, we aspire to the highest standards in everything we do because our customers deserve peace of mind. Our team of over 200 pension professionals, based in London and New York, has one focus: our customer.

PensionBee is named in FT1000 Europe’s ‘Fastest Growing Companies in 2023 and 2024’ and is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LON: PBEE).

About the role

As PensionBee grows we are looking to add a senior member to our small, fast paced, friendly, outcome focussed legal team (flexible for remote working or in office in central London) with a direct report into the Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel who reports directly into the CEO and Board.  The PensionBee legal team places an emphasis, where practical, upon developing internal resources to avoid over reliance upon external resources. The PensionBee legal team covers all areas of advice for the successful operation of our business, including pensions regulation in our markets, as well as corporate and governance advice, FCA and financial services regulation, risk, marketing, employment and DE&I, operations, banking, customer resolution and consumer rights, data protection, commercial (including fintech contracting), asset management, litigation and general legal advisory work.

Key responsibilities

Within the team, the Senior Legal Counsel, United Kingdom, role will have the following focus and responsibilities:

• ensuring PensionBee’s compliance with UK pensions law and regulations, working with our Compliance (First and Second Line) and Risk teams, including ensuring compliance with as well as developing and maintaining PensionBee policies for implementation of pensions law and regulation;
• working with our Compliance (First Line), Banking and Resolution teams on more complicated customer matters (including death benefits, more serious customer complaints, FOS and POS processes), as well as developing PensionBee policies, practices and precedents in this area;
• pensions/consumer litigation management; and
• assisting the Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel, both on a project specific and ad hoc basis, on relevant PensionBee committees in the areas of focus for this role and deputising (on an ad hoc basis) for the Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel where needed on various commercial negotiations and corporate governance matters.

Professional Qualifications: must be a UK qualified solicitor of good standing, or qualified to practice as a solicitor in the UK.

Professional Experience: the successful candidate must be able to demonstrate relevant experience for the role, which may be gained either in house or in private practice (or a combination of the two). Ideally candidates will have meaningful experience in a number of the following areas:

• UK DC pensions, including death benefit entitlements, PSOs, KYC/AML compliance and relevant HMRC guidance and ITEPA regulations;

• Inheritance law, guardianship and family law aspects of UK pensions;

• Business to consumer financial services (ideally in the pensions sector) with exposure to working with the FCA (work with DWP and TPR would be considered favourably), with a particular focus upon consumer duty compliance, and HMRC, and the regulations each of they respectively administer;
• UK GDPR/ITEPA and privacy and consumer protection law; and
• General commercial law contracts and practice.

Professional Qualities and Skills: the key professional qualities and skills required are:

• Excellent written communications (both for formal drafting, e.g. client documentation, agreements and correspondence and for daily communications, e.g. for training, communications between teams, with an ability to take complicated legal concepts or regulatory requirements and communicate them effectively to non-legal teams and an ability to bring people with them when dealing with legal resolutions to existing problems);
• Proactive attitude, willing to engage on and build up experience in areas outside of your existing knowledge base and be prepared to apply your legal skillsets to take on work outside of a strictly legal remit; the successful candidate will be a problem solver (identifying the issue is just the start, the successful candidate needs to work collaboratively with other teams within PensionBee to resolve issues in a way that is practical and commercially effective);
• The ability to work collaboratively and respectfully with internal and external stakeholders;
• A willingness to train others and learn from others of all disciplines;
• Ability to work in a fast paced, small team, in a non-hierarchical structure, that requires flexibility, respect for others and a sense of pride in what you do and the company you work for;
• Ability to independently take on extended projects for legal / regulatory research, developing PensionBee policy in response to changes in the law and developing long term compliance infrastructure; and
• A mature attitude and commitment to the responsibility of the legal function in a regulated publicly listed business, with an ability to engender in your colleagues and PensionBee stakeholers trust in and reliance upon your advice and work product.

Diversity & Inclusion at PensionBee

We welcome all candidates and are proud to have been awarded Employer of the Year at the Financial Adviser Diversity in Finance Awards 2022 and Trailblazing Company of the Year 2024.

We know the need to meet every criteria can sometimes get in the way of meeting brilliant candidates. We believe the right drive is often more important than degrees, so if you have an interest in the role, relevant past experience and are passionate about what we do, get in touch as we'd love to hear from you.

Additionally, it’s not just about paying lip service but monthly celebrations of our differences and opportunities to learn more about our colleagues and friends; from our discussion on men’s mental health to our Pride Picnic. At PensionBee we're committed to provide equal rights, opportunities and treatment for all. We believe all companies have a duty to provide a supportive working environment for their employees and should be transparent. Here you can find our Gender Equality policy and Diversity and Inclusion policy which provide more information on our approach, including our commitments to flexible working requests and reasonable adjustments from day one.

We want everyone to be able to access the same opportunity, and some people might need extra support to have this access. If there’s an adjustment we can make that would help you perform to the best of your ability during the application process, like using a computer during a task instead of writing by hand, or booking in time for a longer interview, please reach out to our Training & Culture Manager and we kindly ask you to only contact Emma related to reasonable adjustments enquiries. You can contact Emma on emma.ferenc@pensionbee.com.

• end of year bonus and generous equity schemes;
• fully remote working enabled environment and culture;
• 25 days annual leave, 5 extra days for people with caring responsibilities and additional leave days for people living with a disability;
• generous and transparent gender inclusive Parental Leave policy;
• pension scheme with 5% matching employer contribution;
• UK Healthcare Cash Plan, Thrive, SmartHealth Virtual GP, Income Protection Insurance and Enjoy Benefits;
• regular company-wide sessions: CEO Session, Show & Tell and varied D&I agenda; giving you an opportunity to share your ideas and learn about other areas of the business;
• a  Happiness! meeting: Every 6 weeks you will have the chance to speak with your manager about your well-being; and
• a warm and motivated team working to make a real difference for our customers.

Hiring Process

•  First Round Interview: from written applications a shortlist of candidates will be asked to participate in an online interview of (30 minutes) with the Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel or another member of the PensionBee Legal Team or a team that works closely with Legal (e.g. Compliance, Risk, Corporate, Company Secretary).
• Legal Writing Task: from candidates undertaking the initial interview, a reduced short list will be asked to undertake a written task of a legal nature (letter of advice/research memorandum; assume 2 to 3 hours of work required, to be completed within a week of assignment).
• Second Round Interview: from candidates undertaking the written task, a further reduced short list (maximum 5 candidates) will be asked to participate in a second interview (30 to 45 minutes) with a small panel (usually consisting of the Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel and one or two senior members of a PensionBee teams working closely with the PensionBee Legal Team).
• Optional Third Round Interview: any preferred candidates (no more than 2) may be invited for a further final interview with the Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel and / or CEO.