Senior Managing Counsel (Commercial, BKNG Fintech Legal)

Join Booking Holdings, a leading global travel company, as a Senior Managing Counsel in the Fintech Legal Team. In this role, you will provide legal support for Fintech Commercial Partnerships across Booking Holdings brands in the US. You will act as a trusted legal adviser to Fintech leadership, lead negotiations and execution of complex partnerships, and design legal strategies for new commercial models. You will also manage external counsel and drive cross-brand efficiency through process improvements.

• Lead legal support for Fintech Commercial Partnerships across Booking Holdings brands in the US, partnering closely with Fintech Commercial Partnership teams.
• Negotiate, draft, and execute complex, high-value partnerships with financial institutions, payment networks, fintech providers, and strategic technology partners.
• Design pragmatic legal strategies and risk mitigations for new commercial models and product-linked partnership initiatives, coordinating input from external and internal subject matter experts.
• Experience in a role with global scope and be capable of sourcing, critiquing and managing input from a range of internal and external stakeholders to form a view even outside your direct experience
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior executives and drive decisions in a matrixed, global organization (whether inhouse or as part of private practice experience)
• License to practice in New York
• Law degree from a top law school, and excellent academic credentials
• Exceptional drafting and negotiation skills, with a track record of leading high-stakes, complex commercial negotiations and producing clear, precise, and commercially effective agreements
• Extensive experience advising on fintech, payments, financial services, and complex global commercial transactions
• Qualified lawyer with 8 + years’ PQE (or equivalent experience) with a mix of in-house and big firm experience preferred
• Good understanding of regulations that cover payments, Fintech, money transmission, EMI/PI frameworks, lending/BNPL, AML/CTF, fraud, sanctions, crypto/virtual assets, and data-driven financial services
• Experience in-house at a global technology, fintech, or payments organization
• Experience in working as an individual contributor in a ‘hands-on’ legal advisory support role, embedded in the business and working closely with the product and commercial teams
• Ability to influence stakeholders across all levels within the organization
• Exceptional and proven ability to move with agility, prioritise workloads and meet deadlines
• Having the courage to take positions and make tough judgment calls
• Being proactive, resilient and having the drive to get things done
• Having sound judgement and the ability to see the big picture and simultaneously appreciate the details necessary to operationalise the strategy
• Ability to lead through complexity and ambiguity
• Global mindset
• Forward thinking with an interest in emerging issues in legal and policy
• Elite drafting precision and negotiation excellence