GENERAL COUNSEL

About the Role

The General Counsel serves as the top legal advisor to Sunrise Banks and its fintech payments business, providing strategic, pragmatic counsel on all legal, regulatory, and risk matters. This role acts as a trusted partner to executive leadership, safeguarding the organization while enabling responsible growth aligned with its CDFI mission. The General Counsel oversees all legal operations, including banking, fintech payments and partnerships, contracts, regulatory compliance, and litigation, and manages a small team and external counsel. This position is critical to enabling the Bank’s dual mission: delivering inclusive financial services as a CDFI while scaling innovative fintech and payments capabilities responsibly.

Responsibilities

• Strategic Legal Leadership
  • Serve as primary legal advisor to the Executive Team and Board on banking, payments, and corporate matters.
  • Advise on enterprise risk management from a legal perspective, providing proactive, solution-oriented legal guidance that balances risk with business objectives.
  • Design legal strategies that align with the Bank’s CDFI mission and regulatory obligations to minimize legal exposure and resolve matters efficiently.
  • Select, engage, and manage outside counsel across specialty areas, controlling spend and setting expectations for responsiveness and outcomes.
  • Establish scalable contract standards and governance practices.
  • Lead and develop a small, high-performing legal team (one attorney and one paralegal).
  • Foster a collaborative, pragmatic, and service-oriented legal function.
• Regulatory & Compliance Advisory
  • Provide legal interpretation and guidance on regulatory requirements, emerging rule changes, and new or evolving products in coordination with the Chief Risk Officer and risk teams.
  • Advise on regulatory “gray areas” and complex compliance, payments, and regulatory issues (BSA/AML, fair lending, UCC, etc.).
  • Support response to regulatory inquiries, complaints, and potential enforcement or litigation exposure.
  • Provide legal guidance in high-risk events, including security incidents, data breaches, and regulatory notification requirements.
  • Partner closely with risk and compliance teams to mitigate legal and regulatory exposure.
• Contracts & Oversight
  • Lead negotiation, structuring, and review of complex agreements, including:
    • Fintech partner agreements
    • Commercial agreements
    • Payments processing and program management contracts
    • Vendor and technology agreements, often partnering with Procurement
  • Provide counsel on contract risk, enforceability, and dispute resolution.
  • Serve as lead legal advisor for fintech and payments business lines, ensuring compliance with evolving industry requirements.
  • Advise on BaaS (Banking-as-a-Service), sponsorship models, and partner oversight frameworks.
  • Support product development with clear, practical legal guidance.
• Supervisory Responsibilities
  • Supervise a Paralegal, including hiring, performance management, and development.
• Key Collaborators
  • Integrator and Executive Team, Board, external counsel, procurement manager, relationship banking, fintech payments and partnerships, risk and compliance.

Requirements

• Juris Doctor (JD) from an accredited law school; active license to practice law.
• 12+ years of legal experience, with significant experience in banking or financial services.
• Deep expertise in banking regulation and supervision; fintech and/or payments (preferred) and commercial contracts and complex negotiations.
• Proven ability to advise senior executives on complex, high-impact issues.
• Experience in a CDFI or mission-driven financial institution preferred.
• Familiarity with BaaS, embedded finance, and fintech partnership models preferred.
• Experience working in both regulated banking and entrepreneurial/growth environments preferred.

Skills

• Sound judgement with pragmatic, business-oriented approach.
• Ability to simplify complex legal issues into clear, actionable guidance.
• High level of integrity and discretion.
• Collaborative leadership style with strong relationship-building skills.
• Comfort operating in a fast-paced, evolving regulatory landscape as both a leader and an individual contributor.
• Superior skill set in Microsoft Teams, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook.

Competencies

• Alignment with Sunrise Core Values
• Business Acumen
• Coaching
• Compliance Management
• Conflict Management
• Employee Development
• Leadership
• Planning/Delegation
• Problem Solving
• Project Management
• Resource Management
• Relationship Management

Pay

Annual salary range: $173,351 – $321,938 (determined based on qualifications).

Benefits

• Medical, Dental, Vision
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
• Life, AD&D, Short-Term Disability (STD), Long-Term Disability (LTD)
• Pet Insurance
• Paid Time Off (PTO)
• Paid Volunteer Time Off (PVT0)
• 401k