Managing Counsel - Commercial & Procurement (Customer & Vendor Contracts) (d/f/m)

Personio's intelligent HR platform helps small and medium-sized organizations unlock the power of people by making complicated, time-consuming tasks simple and efficient. Our team of 1,500 Personios is building user-friendly products that delight our 15,000+ customers and their 1.5 million employees. Ready to make an impact from day one?
This role requires 3 days per week in the office and is based in Munich, Berlin, or London.

Own the contracts that make Personio's growth possible. Lead a team of three and take end-to-end responsibility for our commercial contracting on both sides of the table - the customer agreements that drive revenue, and the vendor and supplier contracts that keep the business running.
Personio's Legal team covers a genuinely broad remit (corporate, commercial, employment, privacy, product, procurement and risk), but this role gives you a focused, high-ownership mandate over commercial contracting specifically - as the Managing Counsel to own it end to end. It's a build role as much as a run role: you'll set the strategy for how Personio contracts with customers, vendors and strategic partners, hold end-to-end ownership of that book of work, and be the one who operationalises it (turning repeat problems into playbooks, workflows and automations the wider business can use without you). You'll be the senior lawyer in the room for our highest-value customer deals, our most important vendor and supplier relationships, and our strategic partnership agreements alike.
Personio's Legal function is also AI-forward - Claude and a dedicated legal AI platform are already core to how the team works day to day. You don't need to be an AI specialist, but you should want your team using these tools properly, not just tolerating them.
This is a senior, people-leadership position, reporting directly to the General Counsel.
 
Role Responsibilities: What you‘ll do
Lead Personio's commercial and procurement contracting - from customer-facing SaaS and technology agreements through to vendor and supplier contracts, on both Personio and counterparty paper

Manage a team of three, setting priorities, reviewing work, and developing the team's technical and commercial judgment

Own the commercial strategy and legal position on customer and supplier relationships across Germany, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain, adapting positions where local law or market practice requires it

Lead complex negotiations directly - the largest customer deals and the vendor relationships that matter most to the business

Build and maintain customer contract and supplier/vendor playbooks, templates and precedent language the team and the business can self-serve from

Partner closely with Sales, Finance and the teams who buy on our behalf as a trusted adviser, balancing legal risk against the pace the business needs

Champion smart use of Personio's AI tooling for contract review, drafting and workflow

Brief the General Counsel with clear, prioritised updates on the commercial contracts book of work and improvements

Role Requirements: What you need to succeed
Experience: 8+ years' PQE, with substantial time spent on commercial contracts and technology or SaaS transactions, ideally in-house.

Leadership: a track record of leading commercial or legal team.

Commercial range: real depth in both customer-facing SaaS contracting and vendor/supplier agreements - you understand both sides of the table, not just one.

Multi-jurisdiction comfort: across more than one European jurisdiction, comfortable adapting a playbook rather than needing a bespoke position for every country.

Pragmatic judgment: you know the difference between a real risk and a theoretical one, and you say so.

Stakeholder confidence: with senior stakeholders who don't have a legal background, and the confidence to push back when a deal needs it.

AI fluency: You have hands-on experience using AI to improve your workflow, and the sound judgment to know