Role Summary
The General Counsel – India will serve as the senior-most legal leader for the India business, operating as a commercial partner to the business and a trusted risk owner in a lean, PE-backed environment.
This role owns the end-to-end India legal charter across commercial contracting, corporate governance, employment, regulatory compliance, disputes, and M&A-related activity. The GC is expected to enable deals, support growth, and protect the business, balancing speed and pragmatism with disciplined risk management.
Operating in a low-entropy, high-accountability culture, this role requires a hands-on legal leader who is comfortable taking measured risks, making decisions with imperfect information, and stepping beyond a narrow advisory remit. This is not a gatekeeper role; success is defined by outcomes enabled, risks anticipated, and issues resolved decisively.
Strategic Deliverables
1. Commercial Enablement & Deal Support
Enable enterprise, SaaS, and cloud software deals at speed by providing pragmatic, solution-oriented legal guidance across customer agreements and broader commercial contracting, including real estate agreements and office leases, ensuring commercially sound terms and alignment with long-term business plans.
Partner closely with business and sales leaders to structure, negotiate, and close commercial agreements while managing downside risk and driving balanced, business-forward outcomes.
Provide structured inbound commercial support for local purchasing and vendor engagements, including review and negotiation of supplier and workforce-related service contracts (e.g., employee transportation), ensuring cost efficiency, compliance, service quality, and positive employee experience.
Shift the legal posture from “risk avoidance” to risk-aware deal enablement by clearly articulating trade-offs and mitigation pathways.
Act as a trusted escalation point on complex, high-stakes, or strategically sensitive commercial negotiations.
2. India Legal Ownership & Risk Protection
Serve as the General Counsel for India, owning all legal, compliance, and governance matters impacting the India entity.
Anticipate and manage legal, regulatory, employment, and reputational risks across the India business.
Lead responses to sensitive matters including disputes, investigations, whistleblower issues, and regulatory inquiries.
Ensure the business is protected without slowing execution or over-engineering controls.
3. Corporate Governance & Regulatory Compliance
Serve as Cloud’s ultimate in-country legal representative across its multiple legal entities in India, formally representing the Company before local authorities and regulators in all India-related matters, subject to internal delegation of authority.
Oversee corporate governance, statutory compliance, and entity management for Indian operations, ensuring adherence to Indian corporate, labour, and regulatory requirements in alignment with global, PE-grade governance standards.
Act as the primary legal interface for auditors, regulators, and external counsel on India-related matters, maintaining strong stakeholder confidence and institutional credibility.
Maintain audit readiness and disciplined documentation practices across entities, ensuring compliance rigor without creating unnecessary bureaucracy or operational drag.
4. M&A, Integration & Restructuring Support
Support global M&A transactions with India exposure, including diligence, risk assessment, and execution.
Advise on post-acquisition integration, workforce transitions, location closures, restructurings, and regulatory clean-up.
Partner with global legal, HR, and finance teams to execute change decisively and compliantly.
Provide practical guidance on hire–fire decisions, employee transfers, and separation strategies.
5. Lean Execution & External Counsel Management
Operate effectively in a lean legal model, relying on judgment, prioritization, and personal execution rather than large teams.
Manage and optimize external counsel relationships, ensuring quality, speed, and cost discipline.
Engage external advisors selectively and outcome-driven — not as default decision-makers.
Continuously simplify processes and remove friction from legal workflows.
6. Executive & Cross-Functional Partnership
Act as a business partner to senior India and global leadership, not a downstream reviewer.
Engage credibly with Finance, Tax, Purchase, HR, Sales, and Operations on complex business decisions.
Represent the India legal perspective in global forums with confidence and clarity.
Build trust through decisiveness, commercial judgment, and consistency.
Key Role Attributes
Commercial, Business-First Legal Leader: Brings a strong commercial instinct to legal decision-making. Focuses on enabling outcomes, not just identifying risk. Understands how enterprise software deals get done and where flexibility matters.
Execution-Oriented, Hands-On Operator: Thrives in lean, delayered environments with limited support structures. Personally engages in high-impact matters. Makes progress despite ambiguity; does not wait for perfect information.
PE-Grade Judgment & Risk Ownership: Demonstrates mature judgment in balancing growth, governance, and downside protection. Understands expectations under private equity ownership—discipline, pace, accountability. Anticipates risk early and addresses it proactively rather than reactively. Comfortable owning hard calls and standing by decisions.
Change-Ready & Resilient Leader: Adapts quickly to shifting priorities, restructurings, and organizational change. Comfortable operating through delayering, scope changes, and evolving mandates. Maintains composure in high-pressure situations involving people, reputation, or regulators. Sees change as part of the operating model, not an exception.
Strong Influencer & Executive Partner: Builds credibility with senior business leaders through clarity, pragmatism, and trust. Influences decisions through judgment and partnership, not positional authority. Communicates risk in a way that business leaders can act on. Operates as a true partner, establishing and sustaining strong, productive working relationships with diverse stakeholders across both corporate headquarters and local India teams, balancing global expectations with local realities.
High-Integrity, Low-Entitlement Mindset: Operates with the highest standards of ethics and integrity. Takes ownership without hiding behind process, precedent, or hierarchy. Low ego, high accountability; steps up when the business needs it. Earns trust by doing the work and taking responsibility for outcomes.
About Us:
Cloud Software Group is one of the world’s largest cloud solution providers, serving more than 100 million users around the globe. When you join Cloud Software Group, you are making a difference for real people, each of whom count on our suite of cloud-based products to get work done — from anywhere. Members of our team will tell you that we value passion for technology and the courage to take risks. Everyone is empowered to learn, dream, and build the future of work. We are on the brink of another Cambrian leap -- a moment of immense evolution and growth. And we need your expertise and experience to do it. Now is the perfect time to move your skills to the cloud.
Cloud Software Group is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, sex or gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, religion, genetic carrier status, disability, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions (including lactation status), marital status, military service, protected veteran status, political activity or affiliation, taking or requesting statutorily protected leave and other protected classifications.
If you need a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during any part of the application process, please contact us via the Bridge portal for assistance.
