General Counsel & Chief Commercial Officer

About Willow

Buildings are more complex than ever — and the teams responsible for running them are still working with fragmented tools, disconnected data, and reactive workflows. Willow is changing that. We build the leading Operational AI platform for the built world, helping owners and operators of large, complex environments — think commercial real estate, higher education, healthcare, and airports — better understand, manage, and optimize their buildings by connecting physical, operational, and human data into a unified digital foundation.

Our platform enables customers to move from reactive workflows to smarter operations, better decision-making, and meaningful financial and operational outcomes. We're a small but mighty company with real customers, real traction, and a genuinely important problem to solve — scaling commercial momentum and building the foundation for long-term category leadership. If you want to do meaningful work at a company that's defining a category, this is the place.

About the role

Willow sells an AI digital twin platform to some of the largest owners and operators of buildings and infrastructure in the world: universities, school districts, government agencies, healthcare systems, and global enterprises. Many of them buy on their own paper and under their own procurement rules, so almost every deal has to be negotiated. At the same time, how we price, partner, and go to market shapes whether those deals are the right deals — well-structured, replicable, and margin-accretive.

We operate across Australia, Europe, and North America, and we have built the legal and commercial function to sit close to the business. There is no ticket queue here. You are in the deal with the team, from early on.

The General Counsel & Chief Commercial Officer owns the full legal and commercial operating system of Willow — from entity governance, compliance, and all legal matters, through to deal desk, pricing, partnerships, and GTM strategy — reporting directly to the CEO. We are looking for someone with the legal depth to fill Willow’s full legal mandate and the commercial ambition to go well beyond it: someone who opens a contract and sees the business decisions inside it, and who can step back and ask whether we are building the right commercial model to win.

What you'll do

1. Enterprise contract negotiation & legal

• Lead the negotiation of our largest and most complex US customer agreements, from first redline through to signature

• Own the SaaS Agreement, Order Form, and the rest of the contract suite, keeping them current, defensible, and easy to sell

• Take on the deals that break the template — public universities and state institutions, federal and state data residency requirements, customer-specific security and AI terms, multi-party arrangements with partners and channel

• Keep intake, triage, and matter tracking in good order so the business can see where things are without having to ask

2. Pricing & commercial strategy

• Own Willow’s pricing architecture — packaging, tiers, expansion mechanics, and discount governance — ensuring pricing is competitive, margin-conscious, and aligned with how customers buy

• Partner with the CEO and CFO to refine the commercial model as Willow scales: new verticals, new geographies, new product surface area

• Track market pricing signals and competitive positioning, and bring clear recommendations to the leadership team

• Own the commercial approval framework so every concession is documented, approved by the right person, and visible to Finance and leadership

3. Partnerships & channel

• Build and own Willow’s partner and channel strategy: technology partners, resellers, system integrators, and industry associations

• Identify, negotiate, and activate partnerships that accelerate pipeline, extend reach, and create defensible competitive advantages

• Own co-marketing and co-selling motions with key partners, working closely with Sales and Marketing to drive joint pipeline

• Structure and govern partner agreements, referral arrangements, and channel economics

4. GTM strategy & deal desk

• Work with sales leadership on strategy for major pursuits, joining early enough to shape the deal structure, pricing, and terms

• Build the guardrails that let sales move without calling Legal or Commercial every time, and a clear escalation path for when they do

• Own Order Form governance and quote-to-cash discipline with Finance, so what we sold is what we invoice

• Turn our contract positions and commercial framework into language the sales team can use on a call: objection handling, talk tracks, and answers they can find for themselves

• Own the AI and data story with customers — our commitments on customer data, model training, and platform integrations win us deals, and they need someone who can hold that conversation confidently with a CISO

5. Legal function leadership

• Own the full legal function globally — all legal matters, across all jurisdictions, ultimately sit with this role

• Lead and develop our Senior Legal Counsel in Sydney, who reports directly to this role and manages AU legal operations. This role also holds the Company Secretary position for the Australian parent entity, working alongside the Senior Legal Counsel to ensure board support and governance obligations are met. You have ultimate oversight over global legal activities and are accountable for the quality and coverage of legal support across the business.

• Manage external counsel relationships globally: scoping, instructing, negotiating fees, and holding firms to their estimates — including matters such as entity deregistrations, joint ventures, and other corporate legal work requiring specialist support

• Steward the corporate legal budget

• Optimize throughput to support rapid growth while maintaining quality

6. Corporate & regulatory operations

• With the support of the Senior Legal Counsel, own US entity administration and the compliance calendar, with external counsel support where required

• Support People & Culture and Finance on US employment matters, equity administration, and immigration, bringing in specialists where appropriate

• Keep regulatory intelligence flowing to sales and marketing on building performance standards, energy ratings, and climate disclosure, so the GTM team can use regulation as a reason to buy

• Contribute to investor and board reporting on commercial matters and the strategic work that sits alongside it

What success looks like in year one

• Enterprise deals are closing faster, and sales can point to the specific commercial and legal changes that made the difference

• Willow has a pricing architecture it can defend, explain, and evolve — not just a discount structure

• At least one partnership is generating measurable pipeline that wouldn’t have existed without it

• Every non-standard commercial term in a signed contract traces back to a documented approval

• The sales team asks for you by name

• No one in the business would describe Legal or Commercial as a bottleneck

What we're looking for

You bring the following to this role:

• Commercial judgment, first and foremost. You can look at a customer's redlines and quickly identify what is truly worth holding the line on and what to let go. You can also look at a pricing model, a partnership structure, or a GTM motion and tell us whether it’s working and what to change.

• Real comfort in a negotiation. Live, with public sector procurement teams, in-house counsel at universities and health systems, and military and government acquisition offices. You know how these buyers operate — their budget calendars, approval chains, and purchasing constraints — and you can work with it rather than around it.

• A business partner people want on the call. Our sales team should be pleased to see you join. That comes from showing up commercially fluent, moving quickly, and caring whether the deal closes.

• A builder’s mindset. We are a lean team supporting a global business, so you will end up creating things that do not exist yet — pricing frameworks, partner programs, deal approval structures, GTM playbooks. You will be given a lot of trust and a lot of leeway to do it your way.

• Fluency with AI tooling. Willow is an AI company and our legal and commercial function runs like one. If you are already using AI for redlining, contract review, research, and commercial analysis, you will feel at home.

• Strategic range. You can move between a contract negotiation in the morning and a board-level pricing discussion in the afternoon. You bring both operational precision and genuine strategic input.

A law degree and real commercial legal experience are a requirement for this role. A strong legal foundation — 7+ years across a law firm and/or in-house with a corporation focused on commercial work — is a requirement for this role, not a preference.

Two people we can picture in this role. The first is an experienced General Counsel or VP Legal – someone who has carried the full legal mandate at a technology or SaaS company and is ready to own a broader commercial remit alongside it. You have depth in the legal function, and you are energized by the prospect of also owning pricing strategy, partnerships, and GTM operations. The second is an experienced commercial attorney from a law firm or in-house background who has become deeply fluent in the business side of enterprise SaaS. You have the legal training and the commercial instincts, and you are ready to step into a role that expects both in equal measure. In both cases, the legal foundation is non-negotiable — a law degree and real commercial legal experience are required. Willow needs someone who can fill the full legal function, not just the commercial layer on top of it. These are illustrations, not a specification — if you are neither of these, but you have the depth and ambition the role requires, we would still very much like to hear from you.

Essential skills

• 7+ years across commercial contracting and in-house legal or law firm practice, with a meaningful focus on commercial work — a law degree is required

• A track record of owning enterprise SaaS negotiations with large, sophisticated buyers — public sector, higher education, healthcare, or real estate experience is particularly useful

• Strong working command of the provisions that decide SaaS deals: liability and indemnity, data protection and residency, IP and license scope, service levels, termination and renewal mechanics, and security obligations

• Experience shaping commercial strategy — pricing, partnerships, GTM motions — not just executing against it

• Experience working alongside revenue leadership and carrying accountability for commercial outcomes

• Hands-on use of AI tooling in a legal or commercial workflow

Valued skills

• Qualified attorney in any US jurisdiction, or admitted in another common law jurisdiction

• Experience building or scaling a partnership or channel program

• Exposure to AI-specific contracting issues: model training restrictions, data use, liability allocation, and customer AI governance requirements

• Comfort working across cultures and time zones, including with a team based in Australia

• Familiarity with the built environment, proptech, energy, or infrastructure

Compensation & Benefits

$240,000 – $280,000 base salary per year

Exact offer reflects your experience and the scope you bring to the role. Equity participation also available.

In accordance with applicable state pay transparency laws, the salary range and a general description of all benefits and other compensation have been disclosed herein. Actual compensation will be determined based on experience, skills, and other relevant factors.