Chief Legal Officer

Finora Bank is a specialized bank dedicated to accelerating growth for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, and entrepreneurs. Licensed by the European Central Bank (ECB), Finora Bank offers innovative financial solutions, including loans, leasing, factoring, and guarantees, to help businesses achieve their full potential.

Based in Vilnius and Tallinn, Finora Bank has a team of 70+ professionals with extensive international experience in banking.

Join the journey of building a fast-growing bank!

HEAD OF LEGAL AND REGULATORY (CHIEF LEGAL OFFICER)

Position Purpose

As Head of Legal and Regulatory (Chief Legal Officer), you will be the Bank's principal legal adviser and lead all legal and regulatory affairs matters. You will work closely with the CEO, Management Board, Supervisory Board, business leaders, and control functions to ensure that the Bank's decisions and operations are legally sound, commercially practical, and aligned with regulatory expectations.This is a senior leadership role combining strategic legal advice with hands-on execution. The Head of Legal and Regulatory (CLO) will lead Legal and Regulatory Affairs while working closely with the Bank's Compliance and other functions.

What will you be doing?

Strategic Legal Leadership

• Lead the Bank's Legal function and define its priorities across Lithuania and Estonia.
  
• Provide clear, commercially grounded legal advice to the CEO, Management Board, Supervisory Board, and senior management.
  
• Identify, assess, and manage legal risks, translating complex legal matters into practical and board-ready recommendations.
  
• Develop and maintain legal policies, procedures, documentation standards, and internal governance arrangements.
  
• Provide legal support during regulatory inquiries, material incidents, organisational changes, and other sensitive situations.
  
• Act as legal owner of the Bank's licensing and authorisation matters, including maintaining the specialised banking licence, notifications to the Bank of Lithuania and/or Estonian FSA on scope-of-activity changes.

Corporate Governance and Legal Operations

• Advise on corporate governance, company and labour law, governance-body decisions, shareholder matters, capital-related actions, and other corporate processes.
  
• Draft, review, and negotiate material agreements and legal documentation related to the Bank's products, services, lending activities, partnerships, outsourcing arrangements, and internal operations.
  
• Provide legal input into new products, services, transactions, projects, and material process changes.
  
• Oversee disputes, claims, litigation, settlement negotiations, and cooperation with external legal counsel.
  
• Support employment, investor relations, financing, and other business matters requiring senior legal expertise.
  
• Support the Management Board and Supervisory Board on fit-and-proper (suitability) assessments, conflicts-of-interest matters, and related governance-body succession and composition requirements.
  
• Own the legal aspects of the Bank's outsourcing framework, including legal review of the outsourcing register and critical/important function agreements, in coordination with the Compliance and Risk functions.
  
• Provide legal oversight of data protection (GDPR) matters, working with the Data Protection Officer, and of intellectual property and IT/technology contracts.
  
• Coordinate the work of Finora Group, AS Legal and ensure a consistent, consolidated approach to all Group-related legal matters.

Regulatory Affairs

• Lead and coordinate the Bank's legal engagement with supervisory and regulatory authorities on matters of a purely legal corporate nature (e.g., amendments to the Articles of Association, increase of share/statutory capital, and other corporate law matters) and assist Compliance function in regulatory inquiries, requests, questionnaires, inspections, applications, notifications, and other formal communications.
  
• Coordinate with the Compliance function all other regulatory institution requests, supervisory communications, and reporting, ensuring a clear division of responsibilities between the Legal and Compliance functions.
  
• Monitor and interpret new or amended banking regulations and supervisory expectations, assess their impact on the Bank, and coordinate the implementation of required changes with responsible functions.
  
• Provide regulatory advice on new products, services, outsourcing arrangements, material process changes, transactions, and strategic initiatives, complementing the regulatory and compliance input.
  
• Lead the legal and regulatory aspects of cross-border activities and projects involving Lithuania and Estonia.
  
• Prepare clear regulatory and legal updates for the Management Board and Supervisory Board and ensure that agreed actions are followed through.
  
• Provide legal advice supporting the Bank's AML/CFT and sanctions compliance framework (in cooperation with the MLRO/Compliance function), and on regulatory frameworks specific to a specialised bank providing B2B services, including daily banking, payments and consumer/commercial credit legislation where applicable.
  
• Provide legal input into the Bank's operational resilience and ICT risk framework under DORA, including legal review of ICT third-party contracts and incident-notification obligations, in coordination with the Compliance and IT/Risk functions.
  
• Represent the Bank, together with the CEO and Compliance, Finance and Risk functions where applicable, in relations with the Bank of Lithuania and other competent authorities.

Leadership and Collaboration

• Lead, develop, and prioritise the work of the Legal team and manage external legal advisers.
  
• Build practical legal awareness across the organisation and help colleagues understand how legal and regulatory requirements apply to their work.
  
• Create a culture of ownership, sound judgment, cooperation, and timely execution.
  
• Support the onboarding, training, and development of Legal team members and other staff on legal and regulatory matters.

What will help you succeed?

Experience & Background

• University degree in Law.
  
• Significant professional experience in a senior legal role, preferably within banking, financial services, fintech, or another highly regulated industry.
  
• Strong knowledge of banking regulation, corporate governance, commercial and contract law, and the regulatory environment applicable to financial institutions.
  
• Demonstrated experience engaging with supervisory or regulatory authorities and coordinating complex regulatory matters.
  
• Experience advising management and governance bodies on strategic, legal, and regulatory decisions.
  
• Proven ability to lead a legal team, manage external counsel, and handle multiple high-priority matters.
• Excellent Lithuanian and English language skills.
  
• Familiarity with EU banking licensing and passporting regimes, AML/CFT and sanctions requirements, data protection (GDPR), and operational resilience/ICT risk requirements (e.g., DORA) is an advantage.

Professional & Personal Competencies

• Strong legal judgment combined with a practical and commercial mindset.
  
• Ability to turn complex legislation and regulatory expectations into clear actions.
  
• Confidence communicating with executives, governance bodies, regulators, and external stakeholders.
  
• High integrity, independence of judgment, and the courage to raise difficult issues.
  
• A hands-on approach and willingness to take ownership from analysis through implementation.
• Strong prioritisation, negotiation, and stakeholder-management skills.
  
• Resilience and sound decision-making in sensitive or high-pressure situations.

What do we offer?

• A High-Impact Role: Lead the legal and regulatory agenda of an ECB-licensed bank and directly influence its governance, strategic decisions, regulatory engagement, and business execution across Lithuania and Estonia.
  
  
• An Experienced, Professional Team: Work with a cross-border team of banking professionals in Vilnius and Tallinn.
  
  
• Competitive Salary: €6,280 – €8,265 gross per month, depending on your experience and competencies.
  
  
• Health Benefits: Access additional health insurance after the probation period.
  
  
• Additional Benefits: Enjoy extra days off based on tenure, a pet-friendly office, complimentary snacks, company events, and branded gifts.

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