Senior Counsel, Strategic Partnerships

About this role

ABOUT COLUMN

For companies building financial technology and transforming the financial services space, the biggest bottleneck to their growth and innovation is often the underlying banks and infrastructure stack they rely on. We have spent our careers founding and scaling companies like Plaid, Square, Meta, Blend, and Affirm, and have seen this problem firsthand — builders and developers needing to partner with traditional banks, and creating API and abstraction layers over the patchwork that is the bank, its core, and many other vendors. All of this results in a complex (and often expensive) banking supply chain involving a user, fintech, BaaS middleware provider, bank, core and the Federal Reserve.

At Column, we set out to simplify and fix this. We are a bank and a software company built from the ground up, offering builders and developers technology-forward banking solutions that cut out the hundreds of vendors, middleware providers, and abstraction layers. This means a safer, more transparent, and less costly banking supply chain. Come build with us!

THE OPPORTUNITY

At Column, we’re looking for a senior lawyer excited to own strategic partnerships end to end, from the first "we want to build with Column" conversation through signing, product development, launch, and ongoing expansion. Instead of handing the work off to a relationship manager or a separate product team, you're the through-line. You will architect novel partnership structures that enable fintechs to deliver modern banking experiences, navigating complex regulatory requirements along the way. You'll work closely with Go-to-Market, Engineering, Finance, Risk and Compliance and have a direct impact on how bespoke financial products are built and delivered at scale. Column’s product suite spans accounts, payments, cards, lending, and loan participations, delivered via both domestic and international fintechs to consumers and businesses.

This role offers direct access to leadership, will involve daily ongoing work with our external partners, and requires creativity and speed. The Column Legal team does not have Product, Regulatory, and Commercial silos – we believe the most effective lawyers are those who can own partnership launches and expansion end-to-end. You will have access to the best AI tools and Legal Ops support.

This role reports directly to the Bank’s General Counsel.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

- Structure Bank-Fintech Partnerships: Lead the legal work to structure and launch partnerships across both payments and credit. Advise on line of credit products, bank accounts, consumer and commercial loan origination, multi-currency wallets, domestic and international card issuance, EWA and BNPL products, complex global money movement products, and more. Draft and review key customer-facing terms and marketing materials, structure onboarding flows and applications, determine BSA/AML requirements, conduct regulatory analyses, and own every legal detail of rolling out a new Column-backed product. Work closely with engineering to design a flow-of-funds model and reflect that product structure in legal documentation.

- Own complex agreements end-to-end: Structure, draft, and negotiate complex customer and third-party partnership agreements covering a broad range of banking products and services.

- Drive Product Strategy & Innovation: Be the strategic legal voice enabling product innovation. Partner closely with business teams and fintech partners from ideation through launch, anticipating challenges and architecting creative solutions that balance business needs with regulatory requirements. Advise on product structuring, and the legal implications of new lending and payments features and partnership models.

- Own Regulatory Architecture: Build and evolve regulatory frameworks for existing and new products. Leverage your deep expertise in NACHA, money transmission, BSA/AML, TILA, Reg Z, Reg E, ECOA, UDAAP, FCRA, state usury and licensing laws, the evolving EWA space, federal preemption, and true lender risk. Partner with compliance and risk teams to develop scalable approaches that protect the business while enabling growth.

- Lead Subject Matter Expertise: Be a go-to authority on legal and regulatory requirements impacting the bank’s products. Share insights on regulatory developments and their practical implications. Help establish Column as a thought leader in banking infrastructure.

- Leverage Technology & AI: Embrace and drive the adoption of technology — including AI and automation tools — to increase the efficiency, speed, and scalability of legal workflows. Identify opportunities to use AI and partner with engineering teams to build legal tooling that gives Column a structural advantage.

- Scale Operations: Design and implement legal processes that can scale with hypergrowth. Improve partner onboarding efficiency while maintaining robust compliance. Build repeatable frameworks that enable the business to move faster. Develop template program agreements and disclosure packages that accelerate new partnership launches.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

- Currently licensed in a U.S. state, J.D. or equivalent, with 7–15+ years as a practicing lawyer; priority given to candidates with both law firm experience and in-house experience at a fintech and/or a financial institution.

- Deep expertise counseling product teams on banking infrastructure and embedded finance solutions, with particular depth in consumer and/or commercial banking.

- Ability to independently draft and negotiate complex commercial agreements, with a strong understanding of both contract law and commercial transactions

- Comprehensive knowledge of the regulatory framework governing banking partnerships and fintech services.

- Deep working knowledge of the regulatory and compliance requirements impacting Column’s payments, card, and lending products.

- Experience structuring agreements and advising on bank-fintech lending partners

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