Senior Legal Lead at Appzone Limited

AppZone is a response to the growing need in emerging markets for financial services accessibility to the masses. The company was formed with a genuine belief in Africa’s latent ability to support the home grown production and delivery of world class IT Software for the enhancement of key sectors of the budding economy. AppZone started off primarily as a developer of custom e-Banking and payment software for leading commercial Banks in Nigeria. In less than 3 years, AppZone had accumulated a remarkable asset-base of e-payment software products and intellectual property. In a bid to extend existing payment solutions to smaller scale Financial institutions, AppZone observed the absolute dearth of basic IT infrastructure and commenced a 2 year project to develop a world class yet affordable core Banking platform for Microfinance Banks (MFBs) and other small scale retail financial institutions. The culmination of this project saw AppZone in full ownership of an entire integrated suite of IT infrastructure required for the effective functioning of any modern retail Bank. Today AppZone has consolidated these platforms into a shared and entirely managed Banking and payment automation IT infrastructure under the brand BankOne. AppZone was incorporated in July 2006 as Price and Networks Limited and commenced full operations in June 2008 with a knife edged focus on creating a world class organization and defacto provider of IT software for the financial services industry. The young, dynamic and driven co-founders of AppZone decided to bring together their wealth of technical, administrative and entrepreneurial experience as well as key leadership competences to create a winning team comprising the best in brains and character. The end point being to transform the financial services industry in Africa and emerging markets around the globe thereby creating immense value for the respective economies and facilitating their overall growth and development.
Job Description

Lead the review, drafting, negotiation and management of commercial agreements across Qore’s business lines, including platform agreements, technology contracts, vendor agreements, partnership arrangements, NDAs, service agreements, data processing agreements and other commercial documentation.
Provide legal advisory support to business teams on commercial decisions, product structures, operational matters, employment-adjacent issues, regulatory-adjacent questions and other matters with legal implications.
Manage the contract lifecycle, including intake, review, negotiation, execution, filing, renewal tracking, expiry tracking and repository discipline.
Ensure contracts and legal documents are reviewed within agreed SLAs and through the approved task management system.
Identify, assess and escalate legal risks, including risks connected to the PSSP licence process, regulatory engagement, market expansion, commercial transactions, customer commitments and partner relationships.
Coordinate with Regulatory Affairs, Compliance, Risk, Privacy and Corporate Governance leads on matters with cross-domain legal implications.
Support the Chief LRCC Officer on Board-facing legal matters, shareholder and equity matters, corporate structure questions, investor-related legal documentation and governance-adjacent legal work.
Maintain and improve Qore’s legal documentation infrastructure, including templates, standard terms, clause libraries, precedent records and legal playbooks.
Brief, instruct and supervise external counsel on matters referred externally, and manage associated costs within approved parameters.
Review AI-assisted legal outputs before they are treated as legal positions, used in external communications, escalated to management, or submitted to the Board, regulators or counterparties.
Provide occasional cross-functional support to other LRCC teams in crisis or high-priority matters, where legal judgement or generalist LRCC experience is required.

Requirements

Nigerian-qualified lawyer with LLB and BL.
Minimum of 6–8 years’ post-call experience.
Experience in a reputable commercial law firm and an in-house / industry role within a regulated business, financial services institution, fintech, payments company, technology company or similarly complex environment.
Strong commercial legal drafting, negotiation and advisory experience.
Strong understanding of Nigerian and African commercial law, corporate law, contract fundamentals, technology contracting and the legal environment for fintech, payments or digital financial services.
Experience advising on commercial contracts, regulatory-adjacent legal issues, product or technology matters, data protection clauses, vendor risk and business expansion.
Good generalist legal range across commercial contracts, regulatory-adjacent advisory, corporate governance, dispute support, employment-adjacent legal issues and legal risk management.
Experience managing multiple workstreams simultaneously with structured, documented output and strong SLA discipline.
Experience working with or managing external counsel.
Strong written communication, sound judgement under pressure and the ability to explain legal risk clearly to non-lawyers.
Comfort working in a lean, high-accountability, AI-enabled legal and governance environment.

Advantageous:

Experience in fintech, payments, banking infrastructure, lending automation, financial technology, SaaS or regulated technology businesses.
Experience supporting Board-facing, investor-facing or regulator-facing legal matters.
LLM, compliance, governance, technology law, data protection or financial services qualification.

Ideal Candidate Profile:

The ideal candidate is a commercially grounded lawyer who can move between detail and judgement quickly.
They are precise with documents, practical with advice, disciplined with timelines, and mature enough to know when a matter can be resolved at Legal level and when it must be escalated.
They must be comfortable operating in a growing function where structure is being deliberately built and where legal support must enable speed without compromising defensibility.