Head: Legal

Through our client-facing brands and our other specialist brands, Momentum Group enables business and people from all walks of life to achieve their financial goals and life aspirations.

We help people grow their savings, protect what matters to them and invest for the future. We help companies and organisations care for and reward their employees and members. Through our own network of advisers or via independent brokers and utilising new platforms Momentum Group provides practical financial solutions for people, communities and businesses.

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Role Purpose

The Head of Legal is accountable for the strategic leadership, governance, performance, and transformation of the Momentum Investments Legal Function, ensuring that the business operates within a robust, commercially pragmatic, and forward-looking legal and regulatory framework while enabling sustainable business growth, innovation, and market competitiveness.

The role serves as the divisional legal authority for Momentum Investments and is responsible for providing strategic legal leadership across all business areas, operations, products, jurisdictions, and governance structures.

The Head of Legal is responsible for:

• Divisional legal risk management and governance
• Strategic legal enablement of business initiatives
• Supporting the Compliance function with regulatory interpretation and organisational positioning
• Legal oversight of product governance and commercial transactions
• Contracting strategy and commercial optimisation
• Legal technology transformation and AI enablement
• Stakeholder engagement with the Group Legal community, industry bodies, and external counsel
• Leadership and development of a high-performing legal capability
• Litigation strategy
• Alignment and compliance to all Momentum Group Frameworks and policies applicable to the Legal Function

As a trusted legal adviser to the Chief Risk Officer, Executive Committees, Boards, and senior leadership teams, the Head of Legal provides authoritative guidance on complex, high-risk, strategically significant, and reputationally sensitive matters while ensuring legal solutions remain commercially viable, practical, competitive, and aligned to the strategic objectives of Momentum Investments

Requirements

• LLB degree or equivalent legal qualification (jurisdiction specific)
• Admitted Attorney or equivalent professional legal admission (jurisdiction specific)
• Minimum 10–15 years post-admission legal experience and a minimum of 5-10 years management experience of a legal team. In-house experience will be advantageous
• Significant experience within financial services, investments, wealth management, or asset management environments
• Proven experience leading legal teams and divisional legal functions
• Strong exposure to cross-border legal and regulatory frameworks
• Experience in legal transformation and AI-enabled legal technologies

Duties & Responsibilities

Strategic Role Positioning

Legal as Risk & Governance Partner (Second Line Function)

• Owns and continuously enhances the enterprise legal risk management framework in line with Momentum Group policies and frameworks
• Provides independent legal oversight and challenge within the internal and external Combined Assurance model for Momentum Investments
• Ensures legal defensibility, governance integrity, and regulatory alignment across all business activities
• Advises on legal, regulatory, conduct, and reputational risks
• Supports enterprise-wide governance effectiveness and risk management maturity from a legal perspective
• Contributes to strategic legal risk appetite discussions for Momentum Investments
• Participate in the Momentum Group Legal Community and ensure all Group requirements are met

Legal as Commercial Enabler(Embedded Strategic Capability)

• Enables business strategy, innovation, and commercial growth through solution-oriented legal advice
• Partners with executives and business units to structure commercially viable legal solutions
• Supports product innovation, platform development, digital transformation, and strategic transactions
• Drives competitive advantage through commercially intelligent contracting approaches
• Balances legal risk mitigation with commercial competitiveness and operational practicality

Key Accountabilities

Legal Strategy & Function Leadership

• Define and execute a forward-looking legal strategy aligned to Momentum Investments’ strategic objectives and compliant with Momentum Group policies and frameworks
• Design and maintain a fit-for-purpose and future appropriate legal operating model
• Establish legal function priorities aligned to divisional strategy and risk appetite
• Drive legal transformation initiatives to improve effectiveness and commercial impact
• Build and lead a high-performance legal team with strong future-fit technical expertise and commercial acumen
• Promote a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and service excellence in line with the cultural principles of Momentum Group and Momentum Investments

Divisional Legal Risk Management & Governance

• Own and continuously enhance the legal risk management framework in line with Momentum Group policies and frameworks
• Identify, assess, monitor, and mitigate legal, regulatory, conduct, and reputational risks
• Ensure compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, governance standards, and regulatory obligations
• Provide legal input into enterprise and divisional risk appetite and governance structures
• Lead legal contributions to Board, Executive Committees, and governance forums
• Monitor emerging legal risks and proactively advise leadership. Work closely with the Head of Compliance to monitor and advise on regulatory risks
• Develop and maintain litigation strategy for Momentum Investments

Regulatory Strategy & External Positioning

• Interpret and advise on complex legislative, regulatory, and governance developments. Work closely with the Heads of Compliance.
• Define organisational legal and regulatory positioning on strategic issues. Work closely with the Heads of Compliance.
• Engage with Group Legal community, industry bodies, and external stakeholders
• Provide guidance on cross-border legal risks including but not limited to South Africa, the UK, Europe, and Guernsey. Work closely with the Heads of Compliance on the regulatory risks
• Ensure alignment to evolving frameworks including COFI, FAIS, CISCA, POPIA, and global conduct standards in conjunction with the Heads of Compliance

Strategic Contracting & Commercial Advantage

The Head of Legal is accountable for transforming contracting into a strategic business enabler and source of competitive advantage.

• Define and implement a modern contracting philosophy aligned to business strategy and risk appetite
• Ensure contracts are commercially enabling, market-aligned, legally robust, and operationally practical
• Enable faster deal execution while maintaining appropriate governance standards
• Develop standardised, modular, and scalable contract frameworks, including playbooks, negotiation frameworks, and market-aligned standards
• Improve turnaround times and overall business support effectiveness across contracting activities
• Support strategic transactions, partnerships, outsourcing arrangements, and product-related contracting
• Lead implementation of Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) capabilities and drive adoption of AI-enabled legal technologies (drafting, review, negotiation analytics, clause management, risk identification)
• Establish data-driven contract management frameworks to enable portfolio-level legal risk insights and commercial optimisation
• Ensure appropriate governance, oversight, and control frameworks within contracting processes, including defined escalation thresholds for high-risk and non-standard contracts
• Balance legal defensibility with commercial competitiveness and operational agility

Combined Assurance & Stakeholder Integration

• Act as a senior legal assurance provider within Momentum Group’s governance framework
• Partner closely with Risk, Compliance, Internal Audit, and business leadership teams
• Ensure clear delineation between Legal interpretation responsibilities and Compliance monitoring responsibilities
• Support integrated governance, risk, and assurance frameworks and work within the internal combined assurance framework of the Governance team

Legal Technology & Transformation

• Lead digital transformation initiatives within the legal function
• Drive adoption of automation, workflow optimisation, advanced analytics and AI-enabled legal solutions
• Establish scalable and efficient legal service delivery models
• Support responsible AI governance and legal oversight relating to emerging technologies
• Drive continuous improvement and innovation across legal processes and service delivery

Leadership & Culture

• Lead, mentor and develop legal professionals across all levels
• Foster a culture of accountability, commercial awareness, collaboration, innovation and ethical leadership
• Build trusted advisory relationships with executives, business leaders and governance stakeholders
• Support employee engagement, succession planning and capability development

Competencies

• Strategic leadership: Enterprise-wide thinking aligned to business strategy; provides strategic legal advisory across all domains
• Executive judgement & influence: Exercises sound ethical judgement and influences at Board/Exco level
• Commercial & risk leadership: Strong financial acumen; balances enterprise risk with business value
• Leading in complexity: Navigates ambiguity and competing priorities effectively
• People leadership: Builds and develops high-performing teams
• Legal & governance leadership: Oversees complex contracting, regulatory strategy, and enterprise legal risk frameworks
• Negotiation leadership: Leads high-value, high-risk commercial negotiations
• Transformation & continuous improvement: Drives legal tech and digital adoption, embeds process efficiency, and fosters a culture of continuous improvement