Assistant General Counsel, Employment

About the Company

The mining industry has steadily become worse at finding new ore deposits, requiring >10X more capital to make discoveries compared to 30 years ago. The easy-to-find, near-surface deposits have largely been found, and the industry has chronically under-invested in new exploration technology, relying on the manual techniques of yesteryear—even as demand accelerates for copper, lithium, and other metals to build electric vehicles, renewable energy, and data centers.

KoBold builds AI models for mineral exploration and deploys those models—alongside our novel sensors—to guide decisions on KoBold-owned-and-operated exploration programs. Since our founding in 2018, KoBold has become by far both the largest independent mineral exploration company and the largest exploration technology developer. Our data scientists and software engineers, who come from leading technology companies, jointly lead exploration programs with our renowned exploration geologists.

KoBold has proven its first discovery with materially less capital than the industry average and found one of the best copper deposits ever discovered: the copper is far more concentrated than the global average of copper mines, and this asset alone is expected to generate meaningful revenue for decades. KoBold has a portfolio of more than 60 other projects, each of which has the potential for another high-quality discovery.

KoBold is privately held; investors include institutional asset managers T. Rowe Price and Canada Pension Plan Investments; technology venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, BOND Capital, Durable Capital, StepStone, and Standard Investments; and strategic natural resources companies BHP and Mitsubishi.

About the Role

This in-house employment and litigation attorney will play an important role in building a global AI-driven clean-tech company that invents breakthrough technology, discovers billions of dollars of minerals, and helps to stop climate change.

Responsibilities

The Assistant General Counsel will:

• Be an integral part of an in-house legal team in a technology and mineral exploration company growing rapidly around the world
• Provide leverage and support to the CLO and DGC so that they are more effective at advancing the company’s priorities
• Develop major parts of the company’s legal function with a particular focus on employment law, global workforce matters, employment-related compliance, and litigation
• Advise on employment matters across multiple jurisdictions, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, the UK, Europe, Africa, and other regions where the company operates
• Draft, review, and negotiate employment agreements, consulting agreements, separation agreements, CIIAAs, offer letters, secondment arrangements, and other workforce-related documents
• Develop, maintain, and improve employee handbooks, policies, procedures, trainings, and internal guidance for a rapidly growing global company
• Advise on employment laws and practices affecting a mobile, international workforce, including hiring, terminations, discipline, accommodations, leaves of absence, wage and hour, workplace safety, anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, retaliation, remote work, and cross-border employment issues
• Partner with HR, talent acquisition, finance, tax, equity administration, and immigration counsel or mobility specialists on legal aspects of workforce mobility
• Support employee equity matters, including in the context of grants, option exercises, terminations, mobility, tax coordination
• Support public-company readiness and public-company employment matters, such as compensation governance, executive employment arrangements, employment-related disclosure, and CD&A support
• Act as primary point of contact in legal department for and manage disputes, threatened claims, litigation, arbitration, mediation, agency charges, and settlement negotiations (employee-related and otherwise)
• Represent the company in dealings with government agencies on employee matters
• Lead and advise on internal employee-related investigations
• Advise on employee benefits matters in the U.S. and abroad, including 401(k), pension, leave, health, retirement, and similar benefit programs
• Take part in discussions on labor relations and union-related issues where they arise, including works councils, collective consultation, union engagement, and labor-law issues in non-U.S. jurisdictions
• Create processes and policies to help build a high-functioning legal department and scalable global employment function
• Hire and supervise outside counsel across many subject areas and jurisdictions
• Have many opportunities to be involved in other areas as the company and its legal functions grow, including intellectual property, data, AI, privacy, broader compliance, and corporate matters
• Work on whatever needs to be done

Qualifications

The candidate must have:

• 11-15 years of experience, with a minimum of 4 years at a top law firm as an employment and/or executive compensation and benefits associate, followed by time working in-house advising business and HR clients directly
• Strong desire and ability to provide leverage, support, and partnership to the CLO and DGC
• Significant experience dealing with workforce employed all over the world, preferably including Australia, Canada, the UK, Europe, and/or Africa
• Substantial experience drafting, negotiating, and advising on employment-related agreements
• Strong working knowledge of employment laws and practical HR counseling, including hiring, terminations, discipline, wage and hour, leaves, accommodations, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, workplace safety, remote work, and cross-border employment issues
• Experience with highly mobile workforce (involving substantial international travel, cross-border assignments and relocations) to be able to support internal immigration counsel and mobility specialists
• Public-company or IPO-readiness experience on employment matters (for example, experience with executive compensation disclosure or CD&A support)
• Litigation and investigations experience with employee-related disputes
• Experience dealing with government agencies on employee matters
• Experience with employee benefits matters, including 401(k), pension, retirement, health, leave, or similar benefit programs (non-U.S. pension or benefits experience is a strong plus)
• Experience with learning many different foreign legal systems and business environments
• Interest in working in a company that requires high levels of collaboration and communication among teammates working remotely across many time zones and continents
• Interest in working in a science-based company where most colleagues are scientists and science is the focus of many company meetings and documents
• Strong ability to learn new tools and an optimistic attitude toward work, people, and solving difficult problems of first instance
• Ability and desire to travel periodically (roughly 3x per year)
• J.D. degree and active admission to a state bar (or equivalent in Canada)

It is not necessary to have experience with mining or mineral exploration; the successful candidate will be able to learn what’s needed about the industry on the job.

This position is Full-time Exempt.

The US base salary range for this full-time exempt position is $210,000 - $265,000, plus equity and benefits including 401k matching.

Location: Remote, candidates must be located in the Eastern Time Zone or Central Time Zone of the United States or Canada (ET preferred). All candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States or Canada.

What to Expect

Joining KoBold means getting the opportunity for hands-on exposure to our exploration projects around the world. All employees are expected to travel to project sites, with a minimum of one week per year. Field-facing and technical roles spend significantly more time in the field.

KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunities for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, disability, or veteran status.