Lead Legal Counsel

AKJ has established a long track record of success in the asset management and fintech space, with clients in 35 countries, $2B in ecosystem assets, and five regulatory jurisdictions, along with being an eight-time recipient of HFM's Best Hedge Fund Platform award. But we are only getting started and are now at a pivotal moment as we build the foundation for the next era of asset management. AKJ is redefining how asset management work gets done. As 24/7 markets, agentic AI, and tokenisation reshape an industry most legacy providers can't keep pace with, we are developing the AKJ Intelligence Stack: the first AI-native, integrated platform combining regulated infrastructure, agentic orchestration, and embedded execution within one architecture. We are also the only regulated, execution-grade alternative to the AI vendors now entering asset management. AKJ has a regulatory moat that would require years to replicate — with a staged plan to help shape the industry's next decade. We are looking for exceptional builders, thinkers and operators who want to work at the intersection of frontier AI and regulated finance – people that can see the future and want to help shape it. We look forward to the prospect of you joining our team! The role: You will lead AKJ Group's legal workstream and run it independently. The role reports to the General Counsel, but you will have your own responsibilities, stakeholders and decisions to make. The General Counsel works alongside you on selected strategic projects. Everything else is yours, from the next fund launch to the next product the business wants to put live, from a regulator's question to a contract negotiation. You will work directly with the CEOs and product teams, Fund Coordination, Compliance, and our AI and systems teams. AKJ Legal is one in-house team advising every company in the group: the hedge fund platform and its AIFMs in the UK (FCA) and Malta (MFSA), the Norwegian investment firm and crypto-asset service provider (Finanstilsynet), the prime brokerage and trading business, the Luxembourg, Malta and Cayman fund structures, and the holding companies. We are the hedge fund specialists. We do the work ourselves rather than referring it out. This is a role for a lawyer who wants to run a legal function in practice, with the authority to do so, before holding the title. The role has a line of progression to Head of Legal for the right person. You will: • Advise the boards and CEOs of group companies on the legal position and the best course of action: assess the legal risk properly and present options so the business can decide — taking a pragmatic, commercial approach, where your job is to find the way to make good ideas work. • Review and advise on new and existing products and services with the CEOs and product teams across the hedge fund platform, prime brokerage and trading services, and digital assets, and put in place the legal documents and legal framework they need. • Bring AI into the legal function, working with AKJ's AI and systems teams: define what the legal workstream needs, test and adopt the tools, and set the standard for how a regulated legal team works with AI. • Deal with all legal aspects of structuring, launching, operating and closing funds on the AKJ platform, working with Fund Coordination and other internal teams. • Own the legal templates, precedents and the automation behind them, and keep improving them so that onboarding a new fund manager runs as an assembly line. • Draft, review and negotiate agreements of all kinds, from standard platform documents to bespoke commercial, corporate and financing agreements. • Implement regulatory change into the group's legal framework, alongside Compliance in each entity. • Communicate with regulators where needed, and support licence applications and extensions of permissions. • Act as corporate counsel to the group companies: governance, board matters, restructurings, acquisitions and other special projects. • Explain legal issues and risks concisely to clients, boards and managers, with quick turnaround. What we are looking for Ability, drive and the capacity to learn quickly matter more to us than a complete match with the list below. What you need to bring: • A law degree with a strong academic record from a leading university — in Norway, the UK or elsewhere. • Around seven years' relevant experience, from a law firm or in-house, within financial services or a related regulated sector. • A strong interest in and good working knowledge of AI: what the models can and cannot do in legal work, how to use them to raise quality and speed, and the curiosity to work with AI engineers. • Sound judgement on legal risk: able to assess it, weigh it against the commercial objective, and give boards and CEOs a clear recommendation rather than a list of caveats. • A clear communicator with stakeholders at every level, in writing and in person. Full professional proficiency in English. • Energy and ambition. You are efficient, calm under pressure and comfortable in an agile environment where priorities change and you do not know what tomorrow brings — and you prefer it that way. • Someone who wants to be challenged, works independently, takes ownership without waiting to be asked, and holds the line when it matters. Experience in one or more of the following will be an advantage: • Experience from asset management, AIFMs, investment firms or brokers, including fund structuring, portfolio management and trading-related services. • Working knowledge of the regulatory frameworks we operate under, such as AIFMD, MiFID II, MiCA, DORA, SFDR, Norwegian securities and AML law. • Exposure to digital assets or other new product areas. • Knowledge of both Norwegian law and common law (ideally English law), a Norwegian advokatbevilling or admission in England and Wales. • Norwegian language skills. Why AKJ • Real ownership from day one: you lead the group's legal workstream on your own authority, with direct access to the CEOs and boards, and a path to Head of Legal. • Breadth few in-house roles offer: funds, AIFMs, brokerage, MiCA-authorised digital-asset services and group corporate work across six jurisdictions. • Work at the frontier of regulated digital assets and AI-native asset management, in a legal team that works side by side with AKJ's AI engineers and systems teams. • A genuinely international, high-performance culture: our people represent 20 nationalities and 15 languages, and we reward initiative and thinking differently. • A central Oslo office at Bolette Brygge, a growing and ambitious team, and competitive terms.